This story by Kanav Narayan Sahgal originally appeared on Global Voices on October 21, 2025.
Sabar Bonda (2025) is a Marathi film that offers an intimate window into queer lives in rural India, exploring love, family, and belonging beyond the urban gaze. By focusing on the experiences of its protagonists in the context of class, gender, sexuality, and rural life, the film challenges conventional narratives and reimagines the possibilities of queer life in India outside of cities. The film’s success at Sundance 2025 and its tender portrayal of gay love in a village setting drew strong critical acclaim alongside culture‑war scrutiny.
In 2023, when the Supreme Court of India was hearing a batch of petitions seeking legal recognition for queer marriages in India (in Supriyo v. Union of India, or “Supriyo”), the Union of India, led by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), not only opposed the petitions but also claimed that queerness was an “urban elite” phenomenon. These assertions were vociferously countered by the petitioners, ultimately leading the Court to definitively assert its stance that the Union of India was wrong in this assessment — queerness could neither be deemed either exclusively urban nor elitist.
Writing for the minority, former Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud observed:
The discussion in this segment has not scratched the surface of the rich history of the lives of LGBTQ persons in India, which continue into the present. Yet, even the limited exploration of the literature and reportage on the subject makes it abundantly clear that homosexuality or queerness is not solely an urban concept, nor is it restricted to the upper classes or privileged communities.
Even though the Court eventually refused to legally recognize queer relationships in India, it affirmed queer people’s authenticity and naturalness, even calling on the government to constitute a committee to explore the creation of a legal framework for recognizing such relationships. Thus, while the Supriyo judgment did not grant full marriage rights to same-sex couples, it did expand the contours of the law by affirming that transgender persons in heterosexual relationships did have the right to marry under existing legislation, including under personal laws. The verdict also clarified an important dimension of marriage rights in India — namely, that the right to marry was not a fundamental right in India, and that the question of legally recognizing same-sex relationships lay within the exclusive domain of the legislature, not the judiciary.
Two years later, while little progress has been made in translating that demand into law, for queer people on the ground, there has been a noticeable acknowledgment of the validity and complexity of queer couples’ lives.
It is in this context that a Marathi film like “Sabar Bonda” (Cactus Pears) emerges as a breath of fresh air amid a slew of Hindi language movies otherwise weighed down by stereotypical romantic tropes that cater to the conventional heteropatriarchal gaze. While Bollywood has explored queer themes before — some films even radical for their time, such as Deepa Mehta’s “Fire” (1996), “My Brother…Nikhil” (2005), and “Geeli Pucchi” (2021) — such films remain far too few.
“Sabar Bonda” goes a step further, asking viewers to imagine the radical possibilities of queerness in a post-Supriyo era. It specifically invites viewers to consider the following questions: What does it mean to be queer in rural India today? How can queerness manifest in an atmosphere where lawmakers, judges, and civil society have largely relegated it to the margins? And how can queer couples navigate the trials of family and marriage in the absence of social, legal, or religious support? These are just some of the bold questions the film urges viewers to confront, and in doing so, it offers an intimate window into certain queer rural lives that have hitherto been overlooked by mainstream cinema.
It should come as no surprise that the film’s director, Rohan, is not only queer but that his worldview and artistic sensibilities are shaped by his working-class upbringing. He was raised in a one-room house in a Mumbai slum by a chauffeur father and a homemaker mother. A self-made filmmaker with a background in interior design, this film reflects his personal perspective and lived experiences. In an interview with The Polis Project, he said:
Look, the film is based on my experience, and this is how things unfolded for me. Everyone’s experience is so different, but when they start making films, it is always the same. There are too many rules. Where is the joy then of telling a story?
It is precisely this willingness to break cinematic conventions and defy storytelling norms that makes “Sabar Bonda” subversive. Drawing from Rohan’s own experiences of grappling with his father’s death and exploring his identity as a queer man while reconnecting with his ancestral roots, the film blends personal history with fiction to create a deeply moving story. It follows Anand (Bhushan Manoj), a call-center worker from Mumbai, who returns to his family’s village in rural Maharashtra for the traditional ten-day mourning period after his father’s death. There, he reconnects with his childhood friend Balya (Suraaj Suman), a local farmer. As Anand navigates grief and familial pressure to marry, the two develop a tender bond that provides both solace and a sense of belonging.
The film’s title, which translates to “Cactus Pears” in Marathi, acts as a metaphor for the protagonists’ journey. Just as the cactus fruit is thorny on the outside but sweet and juicy on the inside, so too do the protagonists endure hardship and navigate love in their harsh rural environment, yet ultimately carve out a space for intimacy and comfort. Another remarkable aspect of the film is that it is in the Marathi language. For far too long, queer narratives in India have been dominated by Hindi cinema, with only a handful of films offered in other vernacular languages, such as Malayalam or Bengali. Very few Marathi films have explored queer narratives, making “Sabar Bonda” a rare and significant contribution to vernacular queer storytelling in India.
“Sabar Bonda” subverts typical queer storytelling in another way by shifting the focus away from stereotypical trauma-centric tropes of coming out and familial violence, and instead, focusing on the rich inner world of its characters. In the film, Anand’s mother knows about her son’s sexuality and quietly supports him. Toward the end of the film, Anand’s mother “guesses” Balya’s sexuality as well and quietly makes space for the two to live together. Such acts of quiet solidarity are rarely depicted in mainstream narratives. The film also challenges the assumption that support for queerness comes only from “educated,” urban-dwelling individuals; instead, it emphasizes that empathy can transcend class, education, and social background. Even though the words “gay,” “queer,” or “homosexual” are never explicitly used, the motifs of queerness are unmistakably embedded throughout the film.
By foregrounding the intimate lives that Balya and Anand carve out in an otherwise hostile environment, “Sabar Bonda” serves as a subtle yet incisive mirror to society, compelling viewers to revisit the questions posed at the beginning: How should queer couples navigate the trials of family and marriage with limited or no social, legal, or religious support? And why must they be confined to the margins while their non-queer counterparts move safely through society with their privileges intact?
The film has received widespread acclaim, winning the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. The Film Critics Guild rated it 8.6/10, with chairperson Anupama Chopra calling it “a lyrical, languid journey of self-discovery and belonging that offers hope even in difficult circumstances.”
Other reviews have been equally generous, with Prathyush Parasuraman of The Hollywood Reporter India likening the film to “bread popping off a toaster,” offering “something crisp.” Mihir Bhanage from The Times of India called it “a beautiful and simple film that unravels into a sweet story of love, loss, and companionship.” Tatsam Mukherjee, writing for The Wire, described it as “leading a quiet revolution into the middle-class living room — not with hysterics, but with grace and fortitude.”
Indeed, the film’s strength lies in its slow, deliberate pacing and subtle storytelling. It delicately explores themes of grief, belonging, sexuality, and family while foregrounding the protagonists’ social location — specifically how caste, gender, sexual orientation, and rural locality shape one’s experiences.
Rohan manages to balance emotion and nuance without coming off as preachy, thereby providing a rare, intimate view of the radical possibilities of queer love in rural India. “Sabar Bonda” is a masterclass in nuanced filmmaking and should be a must-watch for anyone interested in stories that sit at the intersection of class, sexuality, and family life in India.
(DS)
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