Sabar Bonda, a Sensitive Look at Queer Desire in the Indian Village 

Anand (Bhushaan Manoj) has just lost his father, but according to his relatives, it’s not the most pressing absence in his life. Anand is a 30-year-old unmarried man, something which is utterly incomprehensible to the folks in his village in Maharashtra. So even as he gets ready to perform the last rites of his dead father, his relatives don’t forget to remind him about the ‘stigma’ of his marital status. An aunt even wonders out loud, if an unmarried man is fit to light the pyre of his own father. Anand and his mother have to wade through a sea of inquisitions about why he hasn’t settled down – only to come up with stories like – “A girl he was in love with, married someone else. So Anand is heartbroken, and doesn’t wish to get married now.”

Director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s Sabar Bonda (‘Cactus Pears’) – which is the only Indian film playing at Sundance film festival 2025, and is the first ever Marathi film to premiere here – is an exercise in restraint and economy. Anand is gay, and the detail is conveyed with the close-up of an unsent text message, phrased in a manner that screams ‘lover from the past’. “My pappa has passed away, thought you should know” – it says. Living in a cramped chawl in Mumbai, armed with a job at a call-centre, Anand seems to be floating through life like a ghost. The first time we meet him, he’s nodding off in the hospital lobby, barely able to hear his own mobile phone. Almost like him reciprocating to a world, asleep on his ‘real’ self.

Having spent his adult life in Mumbai, Anand has acquired a certain level of sophistication and agency. “As soon as I started earning well, I told my parents why I don’t want to get married…” he tells his childhood friend Balya (Suraaj Suman) – who couldn’t get through high school, and now works as a farm-hand in the village. Even Balya is gay, but without any of the privileges that Anand seems to have found in the city. Meeting him again after he goes back to his ancestral village for his father’s last rites, Anand and Balya try to rekindle their old bond. 

Kanawade, who has said that the film borrows instances from his father’s funeral, writes remarkably visceral instances into the film. The way Anand holds the face of his father’s corpse, as the people around him dress the body for its funeral, is the kind of stark observational moment that can only come from actual experience. There’s a continuous droning silence in the background through most of the film, like the quiet when everyone is asleep at night, when the silence is momentarily interrupted by ambient traffic sounds and/or machine beeps. Anand and Balya’s bond emerges gradually – when they confide their loneliness to each other. It’s bad enough being a queer person in India, but few films have addressed queer folks in rural India, and the shadow they have to live under. 

Here’s where Kanawade’s film scores over its contemporaries – queer stories in Indian films have primarily been co-opted by a particular strata of society. Konkona Sen Sharma’s Mirror (2023; a segment in Lust Stories 2) and Rohena Gera’s Sir (2018) are among the few Indian films that even address the sexual desires of the folks with fewer means. 

Kanawade’s film goes full monty, by addressing queer folks in Indian villages – places often even without the vocabulary for it. But it steers clear of the hostility and venom one might expect to arise from such a situation. Sabar Bonda, in fact, goes in the other direction by shining a light on the cowardice of society – especially while facing someone who owns their sexual identity. 

No one raises their voice throughout the film, even though many scenes seem to be edging towards a confrontation. Balya asks him if he has any ‘special friends’ in the city. A cousin suggests he has many ‘Doctor friends’ in town, who can ‘cure’ any of Anand’s psychological confusions – and they would do it secretly. A sister-in-law cheekily asks if Anand has many male friends, and if that’s the reason why he hasn’t visited the village in the last few years. Despite all the probing, Anand never loses his cool, instead choosing to calmly side-stepping it all. 

Another one of the film’s sparkling merits is the way Kanawade showcases gay desire. The way Balya places his palms on Anand’s thighs, while riding pillion with him on a bike.  In another scene, Anand sits around and watches Balya bathing with the new herbal shampoo he just got him. The aching distance between the men, shortly after Balya runs his fingers through Anand’s hair – followed by a heartbreaking confession by Balya saying he hasn’t felt affection in a long time. “In the village, the (gay) men simply believe in doing the deed and leaving,” he tells Anand.

As the 10-day mourning period comes to an end and Anand gets ready to return to his life in Mumbai, I have to admit I was scared for Balya. Was Anand and Balya’s blossoming bond even real? Was it a coping mechanism for Anand? I braced myself for an ugly altercation featuring the choicest of slurs. Kanawade’s film pulls another surprise here. Anand calmly and defiantly asserts his wishes to his relatives – something he’s able to do because of the acceptance he has from his parents, especially his illiterate-yet-progressive mother (Jayshri Jagtap). 

We might be far away from curing the queerphobia around us, but at least Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s Sabar Bonda leads a quiet revolution into the middle-class living room. Not with hysterics, but with grace and fortitude.

*Sabar Bonda had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival 2025 on Jan 26 at the Egyptian Theatre in Park City, Utah.