DEVARI, India — The legendary Martin Scorsese was the movie’s executive producer although his role was kept secret to ensure the film crew could keep working without attracting media attention. He was even assigned a code name: “elder brother.”

That’s because Neeraj Ghaywan, director of Homebound, didn’t want to go public with his movie until it was ready. He worried its central story might be received with hostility by Indian media — by a country — profoundly changed by a decade of rule by the e Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, known as the BJP.

He need not have worried.

Homebound, is based on a true story: a tender friendship between two boys from a dusty village, one a Muslim; the other a Dalit, a South Asian caste once known as “untouchables.” The movie revolves around their failed attempts to push through the discrimination they face in today’s India as their lives are upturned and imperiled by the Indian government’s response to the COVID pandemic.

“I treaded that path very, very carefully. Like we didn’t disclose about the story for a long time. We were being very cautious,” Ghaywan tells NPR. “I thought: Let the film speak for itself.”

Neeraj Ghaywan is the director of Homebound.

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The film has spoken for itself — helped of course, by the megaphone that is the backing of one of the world’s most prominent directors.

Cannes loved it — a nine-minute standing ovation. Homebound made the rounds of film festivals, gathered up medals along the way, then was selected by India for consideration for an Oscar in the foreign film category. It even made it to the prestigious shortlist — a rare feat for any Indian movie.

Based on a true story

Homebound is based on a New York Times essay from 2020 by writer Basharat Peer. It tells the backstory of a photograph that went viral during the early days of the pandemic in India. The image shows one man cradling another in his lap in the dirt, by the roadside. And that man is clearly unwell.

“Just the care and the dignity, the photograph moved me immensely,” says Peer. “It was a great act of friendship.”

Then Peer discovered the men were Hindu and Muslim, and it drew him in, because of the context of “everything that had come before that in the past 10 years,” he says, referring to the routine vilification of Muslims by Hindu nationalists, including members of the ruling BJP party, and the prime minister himself. Perhaps most prominently this year, in February, the chief minister of the northeastern state of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, generated an AI video of himself shooting Muslims. It was shared by his party and only taken down after a backlash, and a member of the state’s BJP social media team was fired.)

The two men in the image are garment factory workers: Mohammad Saiyub, a Muslim and Amrit Kumar, a Dalit.

That image captured them as they were trying to get home after the Modi government shut down most industries and transport to prevent the spread of the virus.

But with no work, migrant workers, who survive off low wages, began going hungry — and trying to leave. Economist Jayati Ghosh, who researched India’s COVID response, estimates some 80 million migrant workers tried to return home, walking and hitching rides in searing summer heat.

Peer says it reminded him of the Dust Bowl exodus of the ’30s in the United States. “I was thinking about Steinbeck and the Dust Bowl migrants, which led him to write Grapes of Wrath,” says Peer — except in India: “They’re not running from their Dust Bowl villages. They’re running from the Californias to their villages.”

Migrants died enroute — including the man in that viral photo, Amrit Kumar. “He died of heat exhaustion,” his friend Mohammad Saiyub tells us in a tiny tea house in a crowded Mumbai quarter, where workers sat at stainless steel tables to down steaming cups of chai, boiled in a giant, blackened pot manned by a teenager whose face was largely buried in his phone. Saiyub was in the port city to look for work.

Saiyub says the day that photo was taken, he and Kumar had paid a truck driver the equivalent of $53 for a ride. The cargo was crammed with other migrant workers, desperate to return home. But Kumar developed a fever, and the driver booted him off. “They worried he had corona,” Saiyub recalled.

So Saiyub helped his friend off the truck. Then, he says, “the driver told me, you get on the truck and let’s go.” Saiyub refused to abandon his friend. They sat by the roadside, waiting for help. That’s when someone took their photo. As the image spread online, an ambulance raced to find them.

Too late.

Saiyub ultimately returned home with his friend’s body. He dug his best friend’s grave. “My blood is Kumar’s,” he says. “And Kumar’s blood is mine. We were friends like that.”

A personal connection

Director Ghaywan read the essay, drawn in by that tender friendship between a Muslim and a Dalit Hindu.

There was also a very personal reason that Ghaywan was so affected: He was born into a Dalit family but concealed that information for much of his life, fearing rejection by his upper-caste peers if he told them the truth about who he was.

Ghaywan also happens to be a celebrated wunderkid in Bollywood. He got the backing of a major production studio to make Homebound.

He drew on his own experiences of fear and shame as a Dalit-in-hiding to draw Kumar’s character. “In the film, I poured in a lot of my own shame.” And he hoped to humanize a story rarely told, about India’s downtrodden workers. “I felt there is a strong springboard to talk about contemporary India,” Ghaywan said.

Film critic and curator Meenakshi Shedde said the decision to put money on a movie like Homebound spoke to Ghaywan’s talents as a director, and yet remained, something of a “miracle.”

“In today’s India, you can imagine how daring it is of a producer to put money on a film that’s going against the grain,” Shedde said. The grain she refers to is the stuff that Bollywood is increasingly churning out: films that reflect the Indian government’s Hindu nationalist ideology – with macho Hindu men fighting evil Muslims and proud Indians battling enemy Pakistan.

India’s notoriously prickly censors approved the film for screening in the country, although they insisted on changes that diminished the intensity of the caste and faith discrimination that the protagonists faced. Still, Ghaywan says, “the soul of the film remained intact.”

And then, it was selected as India’s official entry for the Oscars.

It was a striking choice to represent India. Just last year, an Indian movie that critics globally tipped as an Oscar winner was passed over by the same selection committee. Critics suggested that was because it featured a steamy Hindu-Muslim romance.

(NPR sought to speak to the Indian selection committee but received no response.)

Film curator Shedde said she, like many of her peers, were dumbstruck. “How did they end up being India’s submission? OK, so those are, I think, mysteries of the universe,” says Shedde.

Ultimately, Homebound made it to the Oscar shortlist for best foreign film but not the final five.

A very personal screening

After all the excitement died down, Ghaywan set about screening the movie in the one place that really mattered: in Devari, the dusty hamlet that Kumar and Sayoub came from.

The families of two young men whose friendship inspired the movie Homebound gather for a makeshift screening on the balcony of the home of Mohammad Saiyub.

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That day, Gaywan hugged the fathers of Saiyub and Kumar, who were waiting to meet him. Both men, elderly and unable to work, sat on the same wooden bench.

Kumar’s mother Subhawati arrived later, dressed in her best, brightly colored sari, gifted by her daughter. Subhawati, hunched and sunburnt, stood quietly outside, until Ghaywan insisted she sit with the menfolk on the porch. Saiyub is from a conservative Muslim family. His sisters and mother stayed inside the house, his mother only poked her head outside to pass on plates of food for lunch.

After the meal, Ghaywan lined up plastic chairs on the Saiyoub family porch. Hung up sheets to block the light. Set up his laptop. Curious villagers piled in. Saiyub’s mother even drew up a chair.

But one person refused to watch: Kumar’s mother, Subhawati.

Ghaywan pleaded with her. “Your son’s story,” he said, “inspired millions of people.” Maybe if she watched the movie, she would see how big he had become in people’s hearts, and “maybe this will help you in some way to heal.”

Kumar’s mother asks us: “What good will it do me to watch this movie?”

Subhawati is the mother of Amrit Kumar, who was on a 1,000-mile journey home with his childhood friend Mohammad Saiyub. Kumar fell ill and later died. Their story inspired the movie Homebound. When the director arranged a screening for the families of the two young men, Kumar’s mother could not bear to watch.

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It was her son Amrit who kept their bellies full with his garment factory work. Now she works on construction sites for a few dollars a day.

“Amrit used to see my sorrow and my happiness. He took my troubles away. If I watch this film — and Amrit doesn’t speak to me, what is the point?”

So as the opening score wafted from the porch, of a movie about her son’s life and death, she walked away.

I didn’t think anyone would take my Hinge prompt seriously. My ideal first date is … hot yoga. The prompt was partly a joke, written by a friend because I couldn’t figure out what to write. If anything, I figured the prompt would explain the series of yoga pictures scattered across my profile, proving to potential suitors that I wasn’t simply a yoga poser like most Angelenos who view vinyasa as just another workout trend.

I was a “serious yogi,” and to date me would mean respecting my daily practice and being OK with the 3,000 small Ganesha statues tucked into every crevice of my apartment.

Still, I was surprised and slightly amused when Noah asked, in all seriousness, if I would like to go to a yoga class with him and then get dinner afterward. In my effort to go on as many dates as possible as quickly as possible, I said yes, of course. I was a couple of months removed from an eight-year relationship that ended badly. I had convinced myself it would take 100 bad first dates before I found anyone remotely interesting. At least a yoga date for date No. 14 would be slightly more exciting than recounting life stories over drinks at the local bar.

In the texting convo that followed planning our date, Noah and I exchanged music tastes. He is a raver and loves EDM, and I am a Swiftie who also, as it turned out, loves EDM. We learned we attended Chapman University at the same time. We both worked on the Fox lot during the same years. And we share an appreciation for tofu, which he called a “gift from the heavens,” making my vegan heart skip a beat.

Noah and I met at a popular hot yoga studio in Hollywood for our one-hour Bikram-vinyasa fusion date. There was something familiar about him that I initially attributed to having crossed paths in college at some point. In the moments before class, we unloaded our gym bags and shoes into separate lockers outside of the yoga room while exchanging hellos that I expected to be awkward but somehow felt easy and unforced. My interest piqued.

In the yoga room, we set up our mats in the second row. As the class started and the instructor dimmed the lights to an orange glow, it hit me that hot yoga might be a horrible first date idea. We were two strangers, our yoga mats a little too close together, already sweating profusely as the yoga teacher instructed us into sun salutations. I couldn’t decide whether to focus on the class, the poses and keeping my breath slow or if I should try to continuously look cute since this was a date. I kept accidentally catching Noah’s eye in the mirror, and through facial expressions, tried to communicate that I was having fun and in no way subtly judging his yoga practice.

At some point during class, Noah slipped his shirt off and, even through my sweat-filled gaze, I caught a glimpse of his six-pack in the mirror. He met my eyes right as I started to blush, and I looked away fast, embarrassed at having been caught staring. The room suddenly felt hotter and more humid than before. I struggled to steady my breath. Yes, this was definitely a horrible yet interesting first date idea.

The teacher cued us onto our bellies for a backbend sequence. My eyes met Noah’s in the mirror again. This time I turned to look at him, and he smiled a surprisingly familiar smile that meant, “I know this is weird, but I’m having fun too.”

“That was a nice class,” Noah said once our hour was up and we were back in the air-conditioned studio lobby. “It’s one way to see your date sweaty and half-naked.”

I laughed in agreement as we parted ways to shower and change for dinner.

We met again at Cafe Gratitude on Larchmont Boulevard and ordered dishes called “I Am Grateful” and “I Am Remarkable” while recounting the class from our perspectives. He told me about his interest in yoga, how he only recently began practicing as a way to help with mobility. I told him yoga keeps me grounded. I showed off the book I kept in my purse, a story about living Jewishly in modern times, which led to a discussion of how we both grew up Jewish on opposite sides of the country. I liked how neither of us ordered a drink with dinner, choosing water over alcohol as the conversation remained interesting and focused. I liked how he was nice to the server and that his eye contact put me at ease. I liked how after paying the check, he walked me to my car and asked if he could kiss me.

I nodded, and he closed the distance between us. We kissed, and with it came a memory: Freshman year of college, orientation week or shortly afterward, I was at a football party with the girl who would soon be my sorority big. I was drunk and chatty and looking to make friends. I started talking to a freshman boy, and that conversation soon turned to making out, the way most drunken college flirting did back then.

My eyes opened, I pulled away from the kiss. “Have we done this before?” I asked.

Noah blushed then nodded softly.

“Freshman year, I think,” he said, “at a party.”

“A football party?”

“Yes!” He laughed, and I did too.

We kissed again. It was the type of kiss you don’t forget. The type that makes sense.

“Well, we have to do this again,” he concluded.

We said good night. He texted me a song to listen to. I played it in the car on repeat until I arrived home.

Until Noah, I thought an invisible string was only the name of a Taylor Swift song. Now, I know better.

The author is a community builder, writer and yoga teacher. She lives in Echo Park. She’s on Instagram: @allegramarcelle.

L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.

Agatha Smithson is that rare person who lacks the gene for self-doubt. Brash and brutally dismissive of anyone who disagrees with her, Agatha is the main character and unreliable narrator of Nancy Foley’s deviously plotted debut novel, I Am Agatha.

If you’re one of those readers who prizes likeability above all else in your fictional characters, you may be inclined to give I Am Agatha a pass. But that would be a mistake. This is a strange, fresh story about artistic ambition and personal autonomy willingly abridged for love. And, all too unusually, the love affair here is between two women in their 60s.

Agatha’s character is inspired by the real-life minimalist painter Agnes Martin, known for her canvases covered in graphs and stripes. Martin lived for years in New Mexico near Georgia O’Keeffe.

Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, Martin was a solitary person, although she had significant relationships with women. Foley, who grew up in New Mexico, says that her novel was inspired by rumors of such a relationship between a friend of her grandmother’s and Martin.

I Am Agatha takes place mostly in the 1970s, with flashbacks to Agatha’s rough youth in Canada and allusions to a hard time in New York, including a stint at Bellevue. New Mexico offers Agatha a new start and an austere landscape that jibes with her art and own personality. Here’s Agatha, in her typical brusque, pared-down manner of speaking, describing the view from the adobe house she built herself high upon a mesa:

My house looks west out over a canyon that although far from any ocean whatsoever yet resembles one in scope and light. This ocean canyon heaves waves of shale and basalt, quartz and silt. Cloud shadows flit across its rock floor like ghost boats.

There is no other place on Earth like Mesa Portales. I have traveled to many places, so mine is not an uninformed opinion. The truth is that there is a hierarchy. Some places are objectively better, just as some people are objectively better than others.

The “objectively better” person Agatha wants to bring to live with her on Mesa Portales is her longtime secret love, a woman named Alice who’s now declining into dementia. But, there are two obstacles to Agatha’s caretaking plan: The first is Alice’s adult son, Frank Jr., who plans to move his mother into a care facility in Taos.

At one point, Agatha and Frank argue over this plan and Frank Jr. drops some bombshell news. Agatha tells us: “I’m startled but won’t let him take my own breath away from me and puff himself up with it.” It’s hard not to root for a character who knows how to sling words around like that.

The other obstacle seems more immovable: It’s Alice’s daughter, Lorna, who’s buried in the backyard of Alice’s house. Years ago, Lorna was murdered by her abusive husband, and Alice likes to sit every day by her daughter’s grave, which is planted with violets and lilacs. I’m not giving much away when I point out that Agatha’s practical, if grotesque, solution to this dilemma is revealed in the cover art of I Am Agatha; metaphorically, that book jacket hits readers over the head with a shovel.

This novel becomes even more deliciously weird as a pattern emerges: That is, whenever Agatha talks with Frank Jr. or other characters about Alice’s welfare, Alice is never present. She’s always taking a walk or a nap or just unavailable.

It becomes impossible to ignore that Agatha is estranged from a lot of people. She makes brief enigmatic references to a falling out with O’Keefe, and an academic colleague, and a parasitic graduate student who’s writing her thesis on Agatha’s art. As a narrator, Agatha turns out to be no more forthcoming to us readers than she’s been to any of these characters — former friends she now regards as antagonists.

In its ingeniously duplicitous narrative structure, I Am Agatha is reminiscent of Patricia Highsmith’s magnificent Ripley novels. Not that Agatha is an amoral con artist like Tom Ripley, but she will do anything to safeguard Alice, her fading love. “We are all of us hunted animals from the moment we are born,” says Agatha, contemplating old age and death. None of us will outrun Mortality, but watching brilliant and wily Agatha try is captivating.