Liberation of love

Right from the first scene, Kanawade explores and questions the idea of community but without any cynicism.
Stil from 'Sabar Bonda'
Stil from 'Sabar Bonda'
Updated on
3 min read

Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s debut Marathi feature film, Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears), can be described simply and succinctly as a queer love story. But it packs in many intricate and overlapping layers of themes and concerns, meanings and nuances within this essential core. Having had its world premiere on January 26 at the Sundance Film Festival, the India-UK-Canada co-production won the Grand Jury award in the World Cinema Dramatic category on January 31.

Like the fruit that it is named after, Sabar Bonda is about the benevolence that accompanies the many barbs that life can throw at us. It’s about hope and healing one can find amid anguish and distress and about the continuities that come along with the finales in the eternal cycle of life and death.

Anand (Bhushaan Manoj) along with his mother (Jayshri Jagtap), has to spend a 10-day mourning period for his late father in their ancestral village where he feels suffocated, unable to relate to people and their intrusive queries about his marriage.

He is already in his 30s but there is still no bride in sight. He finds a kindred spirit in childhood friend Balya (Suraaj Suman), who is fending off similar expectations from the community, of settling down with a woman, something he isn’t prepared for. They strike an unexpected connection and deep bond with each other over these days spent in mourning.

Kanawade frames Anand and Balya and Anand and his mother together in closeups, underscoring the intimacy in their relationship. Then brings in wide shots of the exterior, the village, the homes and fields to let the community in. The performances by all the actors, especially Bhushaan, Suraaj and Jayshri, are key to a lot that is real and sincere in the film.

Right from the first scene, Kanawade explores and questions the idea of community but without any cynicism. Community is where you find solace and comfort in trying times. But it is also a playground for conflicts. Some scenes are very relatable, like the constant nagging of Anand on the inappropriate colour (for mourning) of his T-Shirt—black when it’s actually grey.

And then, just as surprisingly, the members of the extended family come together in his support when an old woman starts questioning Anand lighting his father’s pyre. An unmarried son might be traditionally disallowed from doing it but the only son Anand who has seen and supported his father through the illness has every right to do so.

The semi-autobiographical story is a rare cinematic exploration of queerness in rural India and among the underprivileged. How do you hold on to your identity, sexuality as well as the beliefs and practices you hold dear in a harsh, difficult and conservative set-up? Sabar Bonda is about the many silent but categorical subversions that happen in the most traditional of folds. Often with a little helping hand from unanticipated quarters. In this case Anand’s parents.

The most admirable, affirming aspect about the film is the parent-child relationship that lies at the heart of it—the unconditional love, unquestioning acceptance, support and understanding that Anand gets from his father and mother, breaking the cliche that liberalism, progressiveness and tolerance are factors of education, affluence and privilege. Not quite. Bigotry is often mere power-play and broad-mindedness can reside deep within the hearts of the disenfranchised and the powerless.

Even in dealing with contentious ideas, Kanawade’s gaze remains gentle, tender. He skillfully mixes the real with the surreal. There is an authenticity to how the film is grounded in the rural interiors of Maharashtra, its culture and milieu.

Then there is a dreamlike quality that imbues the frames as Anand reminisces about his father. The relationship between the two is my biggest takeaway from the film—going against the ideals and expectations of masculinity, marked by sensitivity and suffused with humanism.

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