New Delhi, July 30 -- Tempers between India and Pakistan had barely cooled following the brief but dangerous military confrontation between the two nuclear powers in May 2025, when an Indian and a Pakistani met for coffee in Boston, bonding over a shared love for films.

Over that coffee session, I - a Pakistani creative - and Indian writer-director Sriram Emani talked about his new short film, Jam Boy.

I had met Sriram in 2025 at the Boston Asian American Film Festival and saw Jam Boy (run time 22 minutes) at a private screening later. The film is an introspective science-fiction allegory about the psychological cost of belonging to America's "model minority."

Its title comes from a disturbing colonial urban legend: In one version o...