His first film series was ethnographic, looking at Indian migrations to different parts of the world in earlier centuries. His recent films are political and pose the citizen against the state. Struggle and alienation are recurring themes. Observation Sanjay Kak's politically oriented work always takes the point of view of the citizen, in a democratic set up. Though essentially political, even activist, it is leavened by a deep humanity and affection for communities and the particulars of the lives that development, economics and politics threaten to erase. This same human thread runs through his earlier work in Crossings, making it more than distanced ethnography.