After 35 years, I claimed my surname: Neeraj Ghaywan on Homebound and why empathy is the need of the hour

What attracted you to the story of Saiyub and Amrit?

When I read Basharat Peer’s story, I was deeply moved and gutted by the real-life incident involving Mohammad Saiyub and Amrit Kumar, the friends on whom Shoaib and Chandan are based. I felt this was a great premise to begin another conversation. Whenever we speak about marginalised communities in media, academia, or cinema, the discourse is always framed in the form of statistics, which dehumanises them. We don’t really feel or take accountability for what happened to millions of migrants who walked during the pandemic. It was essential to see what their family and friends are like. What do they love, and what are their dreams like? This led me to ask another question: why do migrants leave their homes around the world to move to cities? We stopped probing this question because I don’t think it matters to us. Most of them are from marginalised communities. It is not just about livelihood; it is also an existential search. They make the move because they don’t want to face the tyranny of people reminding them of their marginalised identity. It could be caste, religion, ethnicity, or sexual preferences.

It is ironic that while they want to be seen and heard, they also seek anonymity. Many of them apply for limited government jobs, and when they don’t make it, they feel there is no other way out but to become workers in cities. These are the questions I wanted to explore with two friends: one Dalit and one Muslim as I felt there was a connection. I wanted to talk about empathy, which is the need of the hour right now.

But it is not a Jai-Veeru kind of friendship. The moment you identify them as Dalit and Muslim, it becomes political, particularly in the prevailing environment. Were you conscious of it?

Our very existence as Indians is political because we exist at the intersection of the State, religion, and the backgrounds from which we come. I absolutely love Sholay, but Jai and Veeru never had last names, which doesn’t happen. In Homebound, Jai and Veeru have last names. Their friendship is also about their last names. We are focusing only on the 15% upper caste population. The same section is making cinema, and it is about them only, leading to the invisibilisation of so many stories. I come from the Dalit community and find that Dalit and tribal communities have never been shown from their perspective. I am the first person from the Dalit community to be acknowledged in mainstream Hindi cinema. The only person before me was lyricist Shailendra, who was posthumously acknowledged when his son spoke about it.

Tell us about your background and how it helped you write Chandan’s character.

I was born to Maharashtrian parents and raised in Hyderabad until I completed my engineering. We lived on the outskirts of the city, and my father, a government officer, used to cycle to work. I don’t want to sound like a victim but for some reason, we didn’t mention our caste identity for the fear of being excluded. Masquerading as an upper caste member, I thought it would be all good but it pricked my own conscience. I feared that if someone spotted me, I would no longer be part of the intellectual club in my school, college, and corporate life. That fear stayed with me and threatened to create a huge impostor inside. Over time, I began to think about how to deal with it. I dismantled the victimhood and projected that shame out there because it is the people who make us make these choices who should feel shameful. It is not my shame to carry. After 35 years, I decided to claim my last name. Chandan’s character shares the same misgivings. If you are a quota student, you don’t get to hang out with the best students, but if you don’t, you live with insecurity. There is no easy answer, and I have shown how Chandan and Sudha — who is an Ambedkarite — deal with their lives. People don’t realise education is a privilege for many in the country.

In your episode of Made in Heaven, Pallavi Menke, who seems to have outgrown the scourge of discrimination, is asked about the reservation policy. What is your take on affirmative action?

Reservation is not a privilege accorded. It is not a poverty alleviation programme. It is a reparation for the 2,000-year-old injustice. Earlier, untouchability was used to shame our people; today, that stigma has been transferred to reservations. We still don’t find a just representation of our demographics in academia, the judiciary, the media, and the state apparatus. My experience says that the stigma doesn’t go away even if you climb the social ladder. My staff, my house help, and my driver took time to understand when my caste identity appeared in the newspapers.

Be it the morally ambiguous Bharti Mondal in Geeli Puchchi or Vaishali, Chandan’s sister in Homebound, your Dalit women are complex, not waiting to be saved, and question the patriarchy within.

Usually in Hindi cinema, people from marginalised sections are shown as very idealistic and stereotyped. They are denied humanity, rounded up with all their flaws. There is one thing that unites every single community in this world, and that is patriarchy. I also saw that growing up in a patriarchal household. I have three elder sisters, and I was favoured more than they were. I wanted to exorcise that shame. That’s why Vaishali’s character points out to Chandan that he is being given the privilege to study because he is male. My feminism is not political; it’s personal. I have seen my sisters and my mother go through the complexities of patriarchy. Starting with odd jobs, my mother built a garment store. However, the patriarchal system judged her only by whether she raised her children well and whether she fed them well.

How do you negotiate with Bollywood? In Karan Johar, you have one of the biggest producers.

I am looking for people who have empathy and kindness for those we are talking about. I don’t want people to come away with a condescending gaze or to see it as purely monetary. Karan Johar has long wanted to make a film with me. We were supposed to make a biopic together. He came with all heart, and he said, ‘Neeraj, I want to make a film like yours. I don’t want you to make a film like mine. I want to be part of your world.’ He said it with such sincerity and honesty. Homebound is not made with the intention of being a blockbuster. This film is made with the intention of honouring the marginalised people we show and of discussing the current environment we live in, where so many microaggressions go unnoticed. 

It is lovely that Bollywood’s biggest producer backed it, Martin Scorsese lent his name, and Ishaan Khatter and Janhvi Kapoor headlined it, as it helps it reach more people.

You have cast mainstream actors in lead roles. What was your instruction to them?

I made them realise that these characters are bigger than the film. I told them you have been cast, but you will have to earn the part because you are representing all these billions of Shoaibs, Chandans, and Sudhas, and it is a huge responsibility. At the start, I gave them Ambedkar’s “Annihilation of Caste”. Gradually, they questioned their privilege and began searching for answers themselves. Then there was a two-month-long workshop on language and cultural authenticity. I took the boys to the villages in the film’s costumes and asked them to blend in. We would do scene work in a hut, and I narrated the story in a mazar under a tree. Then we offered namaz. I made them understand the responsibility of portraying a lived reality.

How did Martin Scorsese’s presence help?

He brought a lot of focus into the narrative. I had a lot of ancillary characters with their subplots and arcs. He helped me tighten up and told me to stick with the boys. For instance, Shoaib’s character had a great love story that we shot with Reem Sheikh. I spent the most time writing it and it was so difficult to part with it. A number of friendship montages were cut because Scorsese also said the audience does not need to be reminded of the bond over and over.

How did you exercise creative license with Basharat’s story? One felt it was more political and addressed the pandemic’s systemic failures.

Journalism can pose questions and offer solutions but cinema shows a mirror to society, and it is up to the audience to make sense of the situation. The news story was the climax for me. I had to build an entire world around it. I toured the villages of north India and met many youngsters named Shoaib and Chandan to understand their lives. The narrative serves as an amalgamation of their lived experiences, and sharing it was essential. I didn’t change the last portion, but unlike Saiyub, who is in Dubai now, Shoaib stays put. I wanted to show hope, that there might be a way out.

While the subject and treatment have universal appeal, the English title suggests the film was made with international festivals and awards in mind. A section sees it as an obsession with Oscars…

Do people question when it is for the Olympics? But, yes, it is a fair question. I definitely wanted a Hindi title, and my heart aches that we don’t have one. The English title was intended for Cannes. But it became so popular. Then, at the time of the release in India, we were attending the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). So, we lucked out on the English title. I guess the film had much more box-office potential, but we didn’t have a choice at the time.

Did you have a conversation with Varun Grover (co-dialogue writer) on how the characters will speak? They often reflect on their condition and get philosophical like when Chandan’s mother speaks about the legacy of her cracked feet.

This is my first attempt at dialogue writing. When I wrote the screenplay, I also had to write the dialogue. Later, I had Varun and Sridhar fine-tune them. Some of it feels a little too poetic, but the social commentary had to slip in somewhere. The cracked feet were a metaphor for intergenerational caste trauma passed down. I used to see my grandmother have such feet, and that had stuck with me. Also, she is not sad – in the contrived Doordarshan mould – about it. She actually jokes about it.

How was your experience with the CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification)?

Everything goes through a cycle of negotiation, which I went through as well. To be fair to the CBFC, they were very supportive and engaged in a calm, diligent, and dignified dialogue with me. Some of the political undertones may be a little watered down, but the friendship, the soul of the film, and what it is trying to say about the contemporary environment of India is intact. That could not have been edited out because you cannot censor friendship.

Out of the cuts imposed by the CBFC, which one hurts the most?

I had to tone down the cricket match scene where Shoaib faces microaggressions and comments from his office colleagues.

Recently, you were among the very few in the film industry who posted in support of the film critics who were trolled for criticising Dhurandhar. Where did it come from?

A critic is way more important to me than the praises. I thrive and survive as an artist primarily because of a critic. When we started, we did not know how to read a film or understand a film. Film critics guide us on how to watch a film and help shape our perspective.

Bollywood might not be accommodating of Dalit voices, but we see some strong voices emerging from Tamil cinema.

It is due to strong Dravidian politics. Pa. Ranjith and Mari Selvaraj are making such a headway. Their storytelling idiom is also powerful – on the nose. I talk to Nagraj (Manjule) and Pa. Ranjith, and we don’t want victimhood. That is what has been portrayed for a long time. From Sujata to Article 15, the saviour is always the savarna (privileged upper caste). We are seeking ways to dismantle the status quo.

Could we expect a collaboration with Pa. Ranjith?

We would love to. We share a sense of brotherhood and discuss what we can do. Maybe one day we will.

Among the shortlisted films, which one do you think poses the most significant challenge?

I have watched (Joachim Trier’s) Sentimental Value and found it amazing. I want to watch all the others. Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident will definitely make it to the final nominations. This is the most competitive year. Each film is a winner at a big film festival.

What gives me confidence is that wherever we have screened our film, we have experienced the same reaction from the audience.