Neeraj Ghaywan’s sophomore feature Homebound uses belonging as a smokescreen to reveal how this is no country for the marginalized

Around the 30-minute mark in 12th Fail, Vidhu Vinod Chopra crafts a montage: Manoj (Vikrant Massey) arrives for the first time in Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar, and is stunned by the sheer mass of bodies. Young men and women, all burning with the same hunger, the same dream of clearing a government service exam. A similar moment opens Neeraj Ghaywan’s sophomore feature Homebound . Shoaib (Ishaan Khatter) and Chandan (Vishal Jethwa) step onto a railway platform and freeze seeing dozens of students sit along the tracks, backpacks at their feet, waiting for the train that will carry them to yet another exam centre. Another film, another city, another shot, but the same ache. A country in conflict with its youth. A country that records their presence but erases their possibilities. A country wit