Homebound – a paradoxical ode to home

Home can be a place. A source of love and comfort. But it could also be a restrictive environment one feels bound by. Home can be a culture one feels inexplicably bound to. Home can be a person, a friend that you cannot imagine your life without. Home is where all your dreams may have been born. But your home can also be a cause for shame, a limiting entity that casts a larger-than-life shadow over your horizons. Home is many things, and all these definitions are explored in Neeraj Ghaywan’s latest masterpiece – the unassuming, but quietly heartwrenching Homebound.

In the episodic pace of this film, beauty is restrained as things come together slowly and are quietly unraveled like the unspooling of a golden thread. The film centers on two friends – Shoalib and Chandan. Both live in a small village, have faced several hardships and dream of a better life. Rural India is a character by itself here. She has a lot of natural beauty that we see in scenic shots by the lake or in the farms that the villagers work in, but she is also tired. We see her in the two boys’ families and their shacks and the lives they live where each rupee counts. The boys are bullied or marginalized either for their religion or their caste. Shoalib is a Muslim and Chandan belongs to a lower caste in India who despite attempts are still known as untouchables in small, underdeveloped regions. The two hope to escape the bullying and the downtrodden nature of their life by becoming Indian Police Officers.

But their narrative is a complex one as their paths diverge and little instances are given more importance to not only build character and reveal the depth of relationships in the film, but also to show how much circumstance and luck play a part in deciding the course of one’s life. The two boys take the Indian Police Service (IPS) exam needed to become police officers. The precarious quality of their hopes and dreams are shown when they are seen taking the exam with millions of others in India’s overpopulated landscape, and then made to wait for almost a year for the results by an inefficient and bureaucratic government who never had a position open when it was needed and also delayed the exams when someone released the exam solutions. The government took too long to deal with these issues and we see the boys wait in despair. Their dreams are put on hold and we see how nearly every aspect of their life seems to be symbolizing a world that doesn’t care or at least hasn’t cared for them. Chandan, inspired by his girlfriend, decides to attend college and starts his studies in the meantime.

Finally, the results come. Chandan gets in and Shoalib doesn’t. They have a fight and don’t speak for a while. Shoalib works himself up from a servant in the office to a sales trainee after impressing one of the managers there with his skills of observation, natural instincts and boldness. Meanwhile Chandan waits for his training and time as an officer to begin. But that is again put on hold for months by the government. He is unhappy waiting but soon gains perspective when his older sister bitterly explains to him how lucky he is to have options, while she was forced to work instead of pursuing further studies and how the entire family is working as hard as they can just so he can live his dreams. We see Chandan’s sensitive, contemplative nature grapple with this and see how he decides to take a factory job to support his family. His training doesn’t seem to be starting any time soon, and so makes a sacrifice for his family (at least until that starts). How many men and women in India have the same story? The film forces its audience to wonder how many people have had to put their dreams on hold due to poverty and unfairness, never able to chase them again.

The unfairness of circumstance and our societal prejudices are particularly explored in Homebound. We see how Chandan’s mother is forced to leave her job as the school cook because parents don’t wish her to touch their childrens’ food on account of her caste. We see the derision and mockery Shoalib faces amongst his new co-workers as his very nationality and loyalty are questioned simply due to his religion. A heartbreaking scene of him weeping in Chandan’s arms afterwards was particularly striking. The two boys haven’t had it easy, but that is not all that the film is about. It is about brotherhood as well, the strength of a beautiful friendship. Despite the trappings of their culture, their homes and lives that they are bound to, these people are home for each other.

This is what makes the film so tragic later on. Because despite these uplifting moments and characters who have earned our admiration, our respect, the pandemic intrudes and changes everything, making even home’s definition twisted. The character’s migration from their actual home in their village and yet their entrenchment inside the metaphorical house that is underprivileged India proves to be catastrophic. Ghaywan’s true magic here is that he doesn’t let the pandemic overpower everything. We get the time to know the characters first, to love them dearly and so are caught just as unawares as they are when COVID sweeps the nation. The film exposes again how circumstance and socio-economic conditions cause new kinds of unfairness during a crisis. Everyone’s experience of the pandemic was not the same. While everyone was impacted by the pandemic in some ways, many poor migrant workers in India faced the worst brunt of COVID. I do not wish to reveal the ending of the film, but there is immense sorrow handled sensitively with a modest but masterful touch that is rarely seen in cinema these days.

The film’s ending haunted me for days after I saw it. I think that that was a mark of how truly great this film was. Not just because of its ending, but because of how the director led us to it. Very few films are able to do so much in such an unassuming and natural manner. I think the key to Homebound is that it focuses on character and makes India itself another character that we must reexamine in order to improve. I am perhaps heavily biased especially as I have not seen the other nominees, but I feel that Homebound was deserving of an Oscar nomination (it only made it to the shortlist). Its brilliance is unparalleled in anything else I have seen in cinema and it sheds light on a lot of untold stories that I feel not only need to be told, but also heard. While it did not win the nomination, it definitely won this viewer’s heart and I hope it will for all those who have the privilege to see it.