Hurt by Taboos
Homebound | Director: Neeraj Ghaywan | Cast: Ishaan Khatter, Vishal Jethwa, Janhvi Kapoor
SOMETIMES THE PURPOSE of great cinema is to provoke, to show another's pain. When pain, projected on screen, shames you the film has worked. When the audience, which may not know that reality but can feel the trauma, it's called feeling empathy and in an increasingly insensitive world, we are losing that. Shoaib Ali (Ishaan Khatter) is a Muslim and Chandan Kumar (Vishal Jethwa) is a Dalit. Both boys live on the margins of their village with their families, who share the solidarity of the oppressed. Both take the Police Recruitment Board exam, hoping the uniform will camouflage their identities. But as a venal official tells Chandan, a pig in lion's clothing is still a pig. The pair travel from Surat's textile mills, returning home during the lockdown, two among millions who were abandoned by their employers, their government, even their families. Shoaib is told to go to Dubai but can he leave his village's land, its skies, and his friends? Chandan must choose between educating himself and providing for his family. This is in a society that is governed by the Constitution but still answers to old taboos. When a parent refuses to allow Chandan's mother to cook the mid-day meal, a teacher asks, is this how you will make a new society with your children? Indeed, where identity is still a source of intergenerational hurt, a new world seems doomed.
