Indian romance depicts the juice of queer love amid heartbreak

Cactus Pears (Be patient) begins and ends with a hug. In the first, Anand (Bhushaan Manoj) cups his face as he falls asleep in a sparsely populated hospital waiting room while awaiting news of his father’s fate. In the last, he is held by a lover on the floor of his claustrophobic Mumbai apartment. In Rohan Kanawade’s gently moving romance in the face of heartbreak, we watch this young man move from self-reliance to open vulnerability. These two defiant postures, both born from a need for survival, only the latter of which suggests a hopeful path to prosperity.

Kanawade’s feature debut isn’t the first queer romance to depict the life of a gay man returning home and confronting the conservatism of what he left behind, but few others have been told with such tenderness. In each scene, as Anand navigates the traditionalist and thorny religious culture from which he comes, Kanawade gently depicts the nervous but exhilarating process of self-realization with gentle, gentle care. Vikas Urs’ camera remains stationary in almost every scene, allowing for gentle observation and the space for the protagonist to discover for himself how to honor himself and the family he cares for so clearly and deeply.

Anand has returned to this part of western India because his father is terminally ill. After his brother’s death, Anand was the only surviving child and, as such, financed much of his father’s medical treatment and inevitable funeral rites. At first, Anand is eager to return home to the city, where society is a little more lax about homosexuality, but his mother (Jayshri Jagtap) insists that he stay for the traditional ten days of mourning. And so he does, dodging a never-ending torrent of questions from the community about his wedding plans (which he must do within a year or else wait three), and doing his best to follow the long, strict list of rules he must follow.

You cannot wear shoes until the tenth day. You can’t go to anyone’s house (if you do, you sit on the floor). You also sleep on the floor. You can only have two home-cooked meals a day, so it’s better to have everything at once because you can’t go back for seconds. You cannot eat rice or drink milk. In fact, you can only drink black tea. If you are hungry between meals, fruit is okay. You cannot enter temples, you cannot cut your hair or beard and you cannot wear a hat. There seems to be some debate over whether he can wash his head, with some suggesting this rule only applies to women.

Kanawade makes it clear very quickly that Anand is an outsider here, whose acceptance of everyone’s imposition of the “right” way to grieve is done out of deference to his mother. In a society like this, people gossip frequently. “He insists on not getting married” is clearly a way of calling someone gay without saying the words, and his mother suggests that he tell people that he won’t get married until he meets a nice girl, to avoid all of this. “I won’t give anyone false hope,” Anand responds bravely. Although his mother is aware of his sexuality, she also, at first, intends to keep him a secret from a distance.

Anand keeps his cards close to the chest and Manoj portrays him brilliantly as someone whose pain boils just below the surface, yet is well-trained in the art of hiding. Which he does until he reconnects with a local farmer, Balya (Suraaj Suman), a friend he grew up with, and who also “refuses to marry.” Almost immediately, it’s clear that Anand feels quite comfortable with Balya, telling her, unprompted, during one of their first meetings, how heartbroken he is over the death of his father. Balya responds by inviting him out into the open. For days, the two share their hearts and breathe in the vast open space and gentle sunshine.

Although the town gossips about them, their whispers are strictly coded. No one wants to voice their suspicions about Anand and Balya’s respective sexual identities out loud, which ironically gives them the freedom to explore themselves and each other with increasing fervor. As Anand’s ten days of mourning come to an end and Balya plans to move to Mumbai with him, the neighbors’ fear of calling the truth finally opens the way for them to live their lives the way they want. You cannot deny what you cannot name.

Balya is the one who seems most comfortable in his own skin, while Anand has to get there through both acceptance And rejection from those around him. His late father has been surprisingly accepting (“you know yourself and that’s the most important thing”) and his mother finally tells him to forget what other people have to say. As mother and son bond over grief, their mutual understanding grows.

The title of the film comes from the rare fruit whose tree has practically disappeared from this part of the countryside. But one day, Balya surprises Anand with a bag. The pink, oval fruit often has thorns inside, but Balya removed them for Anand’s pleasure. As it opens its delicate skin with the swipe of a fingernail, a dark red fruit brimming with juice emerges. It is an elegant symbol of self-love and a profound gift from a lover. “What you think is lost is here,” Balya seems to say, “and what you think is dangerous is really just the meat of your heart.” Open it, eat it. Be who you are.

Cactus Pears opens in select theaters on November 21.