Hanging by a Thread

Hindustan Times

2 days ago

For many Indians — and it is a common experience for most college students — a conversation about caste is often a conversation only about reservations. Why reservation in education and jobs for people from historically backward castes is wrong? Or why is it right? Writer-director Akshay Parvatkar, 30, has had that experience all his life, and it became the fuel for his impassioned story in 'Hanging by a Thread', a film that ends with a rousing Dalit poem entreating and evoking the end of caste by Goa's poet-politician Vishnu Surya Wag. 'I got admission into college through reservation, but caste was never a big factor for me growing up. My father, a teacher, and mother, who had a government job, kept me shielded from the idea that society may see me differently because of my caste. But in my adult life, I have come across so many people who see caste only as that which allows for reservation. After hearing so much about caste from that lens, I also began to see my life differently. But the point is, there is caste everywhere in India,' Parvatkar, who now works as a writer and director in Mumbai, says.
Caste has been unpalatable to Mumbai's film producers and cinema lovers, which perhaps explains why there are so few Bollywood films about caste. Nagraj Manjula's blockbuster Marathi film 'Sairat' (2016), which steered an inter-caste love story with a winning combination of realism and crowd-pleasing aesthetics and music, is an outlier. Neeraj Ghaywan ('Masaan', 'Geeli Poochi' in the anthology 'Ajeeb Daastaans', 'Homebound') is another director who has openly talked about his own Dalit identity and made caste an effective propeller in his films.
Parvatkar takes a linear, no-fuss approach in his film language — depending equally on high-pitched drama and literal messaging to deliver his message.
Rohit (Saiesh Sonawane) and Aditya (Ved Amonkar), two teenaged boys and best friends, play football at a neighbourhood field with boys older than them. When Rohit notices that the boys who wear a Hindu sacred thread — the Brahmin insignia handed down over several centuries — get different, more favourable treatment from the older boys who call the shots on field, Rohit decides to make a sacred thread for himself. What follows is a shame storm, culminating in blood-drenched thread hanging over a toilet, and a mother-son moment that conveniently sets the identity story right for Rohit — 'Caste doesn't define you,' his mom consoles, in lyrical Konkani.
A still from the movie 'Hanging by the Thread'.
The film has a distinct look and feel — the field has the danger and unpredictability of a battlefield, and the interiors of Rohit's unpretentious flat (the family home of the filmmaker) are a canvas for the awkward, tense build-up of unspoken caste consciousness in the Dalit family to which Rohit belongs. Cinematographer Abhiraj Rawale captures the smallest detail of the home, including a whirring Usha sewing machine, which becomes a symbol of labour, industriousness and even antiquity — qualities that the writer-director suffuses his writing with, when it comes to portraying what Indian society considers 'low caste'.
After completing his education in Goa, Parvatkar decided to make a career out of his amateur storytelling and dramatics, which he chiselled through his college days. Made with a grant from the Museum of Goa and later funding from a Konkani writer-producer based in London, 'Hanging by a Thread' is Parvatkar's first professional work. 'I got together Goan film professionals who work in Mumbai and elsewhere, and made it like a guerrilla project. Because there are hardly any Konkani language films, it became about doing something that hasn't been done much. It kept the group motivated,' Parvatkar says.
A moment from the movie.
Earlier, Parvatkar has made the documentary 'Grandmother's School' (2020), about a one-of-a-kind school in Maharashtra's Fangane district, which is meant only for grandmothers to study in. His other film is a mockumentary 'The First Wedding' (2020), which subverted the hetero-normative stereotype by setting the story in a way that makes a heterosexual couple the outsider in a world in which homosexuality is the norm and celebrating 'the first heterosexual couple's wedding' the politically correct thing to do. At present, Parvatkar is at work on his next film, about the heady chaos of a woman unfolding on the day of her twenty-eighth birthday.
'Hanging by a Thread' continues to be screened at various venues across India, having premiered at the International Film Festival of India in Goa in 2024. 'Some festivals have rejected this film on the point of subtlety. It is not subtle about its message that caste is outdated and needs to be flushed out, and I meant the drama to be in-your-face, that was the point,' Parvatkar says. And some reposes have overwhelmed the filmmaker — 'Once a man came up to me after a screening and said he once did what the protagonist does in the film — make a sacred thread for himself to wear.'
A scene from 'Hanging by the Thread'.
In a world fast leaping into tech-fuelled utopia — or dystopia, however you look at it — seemingly insular to small details of real-life hustles, a film like 'Hanging by a Thread' at first seems quaint. It then reminds you that we live simultaneously in different ages. Even now, a boy who wants to kick a ball and score a goal can be intrigued by how a thread around his torso could upgrade his life in small but significant ways.
DETAILS:
Produced by: Herman Kirtan
Budget: ₹4 lakh
Running time: 20 minutes
Language: Konkani
Short Stream is a monthly curated section, in which we present an Indian short film that hasn't been seen before or not widely seen before, but is making the right buzz in the film industry and film festival circles. We stream the film for a month on HT Premium, the subscription-only section in hindustantimes.com.
Sanjukta Sharma is a Mumbai-based writer and film critic. Write to her at [e-mail].