Harsh Agarwal and Sumit Pawar | Vaidya / 2021

the boy by the sea

by Douglas Messerli

Harsh Agarwal (screenplay), Harsh Agarwal and Sumit Pawar (directors) Vaidya / 2021 [23 minutes]

 

This Indian film in Hindi seems, at first glance, a gay romance in which Kabir (Puneet Kumar Mishra), a middle-aged businessman, meets a beach watcher named Vaidya, who describes himself as a kind of lifeguard. But questions put to him are regularly answered rather obliquely. Why, for example, is Kabir’s billfold, which he lost in a quick swim in his rolled-up pants, returned to him still dry? Why has Vaidya never before tasted alcohol? And why does he have no telephone or other contact, suggesting that Kabir will simply find him always on the same beach?

     Kabir senses almost immediately that that there is something unusual about this young man, and the relationship they soon develop appears to be something he has never before experienced. While Kabir answers rather Vaidya’s questions rather straight-forwardly, Vaidya evades direct answers with metaphors and other linguistic ruses.

     Anwesh Sahoo at Gaylaxy notes Kabir’s directness:

     Kabir shares with Vaidya what brings him to Goa, ‘Beech beech mein jeene ke bahane dhundte rehta hoon (I keep looking for reasons to live).’ to which Vaidya asks, ‘Toh mila kya? Bahana? (Did you find it? The reason to live?)’ and their hands swiftly come together. The subtle moments work. There’s no moment in the film really where they out and about proclaim their love for each other, but you see it in their eyes, the longing, the angst, the fondness and in the end the uncertainty and frustration [on Kabir’s part]. The film stays true to its namesake, mysterious yet gripping for most parts.”

   At first, I suspected in the generalness with which Vaidya answered his questions, and from Kabir’s comment that the boy’s lips tasted of salt, that perhaps the handsome young man was a kind of meerman, the male counterpart of a mermaid, that goes all the way back to Greek and Roman mythology, and reoccurs in Scandinavian, Germanic, and Celtic literatures. The monster known as the Gill-man from the film Creature from the Black Lagoon might be perceived as a modern adaptation of the merman myth. Each day of his vacation, indeed, Kabir seeks out the boy by the warm waters of the Arabian Sea, and takes him back to his hotel room for sex.

     When it finally comes time for Kabir to fly back to his home in the inland Indian city of Gurgaon, he begs Vaidya to join him; but once more the young man elliptically explains that he cannot yet travel there, but perhaps will one day.

      On his part, Kabir promises to return soon, emphasizing “I promise to return prepared to take you with me.”

      But upon arriving back in Gurgaon, Kabir’s friends find his story strange and are unconvinced of the innocence of the boy, particularly given that the young man has no method of contacting him. What if Kabir were to be kidnapped they argue, how would they even contact him, or even have a way of tracking down Vaidya.

      Kabir, a practical man locked in his workaday world, gives in to them, not living up to his promise he made to the boy he so loved.

      Years pass, and the rains come to his inland city, with them Vaidya, who confronts Kabir for not remaining true to his promise. Kabir defends himself, saying that there was no way to contact him and a relocation to Goa was impossible. We have to be practical, he again argues.

       Hurt and angry, Vaidya turns to go, telling his former lover that he will return to a place where Kabir will never find him.

       It is only as we watch him move toward the ocean and disappear into thin air that we realize that Vaidya is actually part of Indian myth similar to the father-son relationship of the Greek’s Triton, son of the sea-god Poseidon. The final credits reveal that Vaidya is the son of Varuna, the Hindu God of the Sea among other roles he performed.

 

Los Angeles, July 5, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (July 2025).