In another life, Maya (Tillotama Shome) would have lived a different, more comfortable life. A college graduate in Barrackpore, she was set for an ordinary middle-class life like the many girls around her. However, all her parents’ dreams crash and burn when Maya tells them about Sundar (Chandan Bisht) – a pahadi man stationed in the nearby army cantonment. By the time Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi’s Baksho Bondi (English title: Shadowbox) begins – it’s been a few years since Sundar has been dishonourably discharged from the army because of what appears to be a serious case of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The rebellion of young love has made way for the caution and weariness of middle age. Both presumably in their late 30s by now, the onus of providing for Sundar now falls on Maya.
Working as the ironing lady, Maya works as a domestic help in the neighbourhood and also helps around at a poultry farm. Alternating between a parent and a loving partner for Sundar, she is also a cheerleader for her son Debu’s (Sayan Karmakar) seemingly unaffordable dreams of becoming a dancer one day. She doesn’t let the family’s financial strife reflect on her face, and it’s around here that Das and Sahi’s casting choice makes most sense. Is there a more stoic face in Hindi cinema than Tillotama Shome’s, especially when she’s being told she’s not good enough for something? The face shows up early on, when brother Monotosh (Somnath Mondal) is telling Maya off after Sundar fails to show up for an interview he’d set up with an influential person.
Baksho Bondi premiered at the Berlinale 2025 in the Perspective section.
Das and Sahi, who earlier made the short film – A New Life, about a man on the precipice of fatherhood coming to terms with it, bring their similar lucid observation here too. The duo prioritise the world and the feeling over the next plot-point. For eg: a death and a disappearance take place entirely off-camera. A local alcoholic is found dead, someone Sundar would usually be seen drinking with, around the same time as Sundar disappears. As Maya tries to look for him, she learns Sundar is the prime suspect. We can see the horror on her face realising how it would be game over for Sundar if the cops found him. They’re already in the disposable margins and Sundar is a perfect suspect for an incident like this.
However, the clock doesn’t start ticking after this incident – instead Sahi and Das stick to the film’s procedural roots by continuing to shine a light on Maya’s endless labour. As she goes around co-operating with local cops, she also navigates a minefield of what might implicate Sundar. Careful about what she tells the cops, and lying to herself about what she does and doesn’t know about the night of – Maya looks like someone who has seen enough ebbs and flows in her life, to know she only has weather this storm for a few days.
One of my favourite tracks in the film is the delicious tension between Maya and Monotosh – a relatively well-off stationery shop owner – that reveals itself slowly. Suffering from a saviour complex while listening to his sisters’ ordeals, Monotosh tries wily schemes to gather information about her secret plans to open a launderette. One can sense the transactionality between the siblings, where Maya asks him for help because she has no one else. Monotosh revels in having his academically-superior, arguably brighter sibling (Maya might have also been the more-loved offspring) at his beck-and-call. She’s privy to how he looks at her like a charity case, and uses her to massage his ego. It’s a dynamic that is never spelled out in many words, only hinted at in stray scenes, making it that much more effective to watch.
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Shome, who has earlier played characters from similar socio-economic backgrounds, imbues Maya with the specificity of Das and Sahi’s world. It’s a towering performance holding a film together – especially one that luxuriates in what is left unsaid. Bisht as Sundar is perfect foil to the stillness of Shome’s Maya. There’s an unpredictability with which Bisht plays Sundar – inhabiting each and every scene with a sense of danger. Hence, one of my favourite scenes in the film is between Sundar and Maya, where he’s giving her a back rub, while pointing out the nuances in the Hindi pronunciation of a poem that Maya is reading aloud. It’s probably the only scene in the entire film where the two characters come off as equals, hinting at the residual love in this partnership that has been through a lifetime.
Baksho Bondi – literally translating to a ‘boxed-in prisoner’ – is as much a reference to Maya being imprisoned by her circumstances, as it is to Sundar being locked up in his paranoia, and Debu trying to break-free from the responsibility of having to play a parent to his father. How Maya and Debu have to ignore the sneers of living with someone the society deems a liability.
But then, Das and Sahi’s film reveals itself as a film about selfless, all-encompassing love. Such fierce loyalty that doesn’t even glance at self-preservation. Baksho Bondi ends with a promise that Maya makes to Sundar – despite being on the cliff of functionality. No matter how battered our situation, how bruised our sense-of-self, how unrequited our love: the spirit remains whole.
Baksho Bondi premiered at the Berlinale 2025 in the Perspective section, among 14 first-time filmmakers
