Commercial short films

With "Dus Kahaniya", Sanjay Gupta did something that was rarely done in India cinema. He created a hype and distributed in theaters. This formula was tried by only one other director, RG Verma with "Darna Mana hai" that tied together 6 horror short films together.

Short films have a reputation of being a student film or are typically made on subects that few are willing to touch as commercial venture. In US, where short films have a separate genre and can hope to even get distributed (Apollo Cinema), Indian short films have largely remained student films or "Public Announcements". In US there are Laemmle Theatres in Los Angeles, Ragtag
in Columbia, Missouri, Two Boots Pioneer Theater in New York City, Rialto
Cinemas in Santa Rosa, California, and Times Cinema in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
continue to draw an audience for short films. Art house theater owners and managers actually promote the individual short films to create audience buzz in their local market.

Can you make money from your short films? The majority of short-format filmmakers don't even realize that a viable market for their work exists.
Television is always content hungry. There are bunch of internet sites that will show your film and pay you a percentage for each paid viewing. Mobile phone market remains untapped.

Short films are a great medium to tell a narrative, pick a subject that commercial films would not experiment with, at the same time you can make films that can fund your next bigger production.