01 June,2025 09:26 AM IST | Mumbai | Meenakshi Shedde
Illustration/Uday Mohite
Homebound is a Sholay 2.0 for the 2025 decade, 50 years after the original. While Homebound's narrative is of a popular buddy film, centering on the friendship between Mohammed Shoaib Ali (Ishaan Khatter) and Chandan Kumar (Vishal Jethwa) in a small North Indian town, the film, in fact, plays out at the bristling intersection of caste, class, religion and gender. There are neither rousing buddy bike songs nor villain's dialoguebaazi. Instead, the friendship of the young male leads - Shoaib is a Muslim and Chandan is a low caste Hindu - is tested, and fortified, by the deep discrimination they both face, as much by upper castes and the Hindu majority, as by the system. The sharply written screenplay sees them battle many issues--poverty, unemployment and discrimination. They struggle to get police jobs to support their desperately poor families, instead of going to college; they struggle to survive the COVID pandemic lockdown; Chandan struggles to hold on to his love, Sudha Bharti (also lower caste Hindu, Janhvi Kapoor).
Ghaywan always keeps the screenplay deeply personal, so we care for the characters. He holds up an unflinching mirror to what it means to be a "low" caste person or a minority/Muslim in India today: the insidious, everyday humiliations, as well as denial of the big opportunities in life. So Chandan, though "low" caste, never wants to apply on the reserved quota categories for "low" castes, because "I'm scared that even if I get to be a police officer, I'll still be forced to clean toilets."
Upper caste families evenpressurise a school Headmaster to sack Chandan's mother as the school cook, because she is low caste, and when the Headmaster tells them about the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, they simply threaten to boycott the school. So the Indian Constitution is often out of reach for low castes, in terms of actual justice. Likewise, Shoaib is humiliated in his peon's job - with authorities needlessly demanding kaagaz - ID cards, a police clearance; he's taunted as a Pakistani at every turn. "I'm not even considered a human being⦠If educated people won't speak up, what chance do we have?" he asks.
When the pandemic national lockdown is announced overnight, Shoaib and Chandan, like millions of Indian migrants, are forced to walk home to their village, 100s of km away, leading to a poignant, memorableclimax - there won't be a dry eye in the audience.
Ghaywan's direction is absolutely assured; his finely observed screenplay is adapted from Basharat Peer's article in the New York Times. The dialogues, by Ghaywan, Varun Grover and Shriidhar Dubey, are razor sharp. Ishaan Khatter (The Royals, A Suitable Boy) is marvellous, and Vishal Jethwa (Mardaani2) is convincing; Jahnvi Kapoor (Dhadak) struggles for street cred in a modest but key role as Sudha Bharti, Chandan's love interest.
Pratik Shah's cinematography and Nitin Baid's editing are superb. Naren Chandavarkar and Benedict Taylor's music is discreet. The women crew includes co-producers Melita Toscan du Plantier and Marijke deSouza, and production designer Khyatee Kanchan. This is a relatively rare instance of a marginalised artist speaking in his own voice in a feature film - Ghaywan came out as Dalit a few years ago. Kudos to Ghaywan and Dharma for the courage and magnificent empathy to make Homebound. Don't miss this film!
Meenakshi Shedde, film curator, has been working with the Toronto, Berlin and other festivals worldwide for 30 years. She has been a Cannes Film Festival Jury Member and Golden Globes International Voter, and is a journalist and critic.
Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com
