Very rarely do we come across a queer narrative that feels incredibly fresh and fearless. One that doesn’t reduce a character’s identity to their sexuality alone. One that allows the character to exist as a fully realized individual who is equally funny, flawed, ambitions and most importantly humane as “normal protagonists”.
Today, a decade after its release, Shakun Batra’s Kapoor & Sons remains one of the few films to have such a refreshing take. In the film, Fawad Khan’s Rahul is a closeted gay man, but the beauty of the film lies in how Rahul is portrayed as an ordinary sports-loving, guitar-playing guy, any woman would easily fall in love with. The coming out scene in the film feels less of a spectacle and more of an actual reality that instantly strikes a chord. The film understands identity beyond labels.
Shakun spoke to us about his intent behind crafting Fawad’s character, the pressure associated with ‘coming out’ in Indian families and more. Read on…
Was there a conscious effort to avoid stereotypical coding of Rahul as a queer character?
Yes. The idea was never to “present” Rahul as queer through the usual cinematic shortcuts. I didn’t want the audience to identify his sexuality before they understood him as a son, a brother, a writer, and a deeply conflicted person carrying a secret.
For me, Rahul’s queerness was one part of his life, not the whole grammar of his personality. He could be charming, ambitious, flawed, emotionally evasive, loving, and also gay. That felt more truthful.
The effort was to avoid making his sexuality a twist for shock value or turning it into a visible performance. His queerness had to live in silence, in withholding, in the way he navigates love inside a family that may not have the vocabulary or readiness to receive his truth. That felt far more honest than any stereotype.
Do you think Indian family dynamics naturally intensify the emotional weight of coming-out stories on screen?
Yes, because in Indian families, identity is rarely individual. It belongs to the whole household.
Who you love, who you marry, what you do, where you live, everything somehow becomes family property. There is love in that, but also pressure. So, when someone comes out, they are not only revealing something personal. They are also disrupting an entire imagined future the family has built around them. That’s what makes it emotionally loaded. The fear is not just rejection. It’s disappointment. It’s shame. It’s the possibility of being seen differently by the people whose love you still desperately need.
And I think that tension is very specific to our culture. The family can be your safest place and your most frightening courtroom at the same time. That contradiction is what makes these stories so powerful.
Could you talk to us through the coming-out scene in Kapoor & Sons? What was your thought process while writing and filming it?
The scene was never meant to be a “big reveal”. I was more interested in the aftermath of a truth entering the room. Rahul has lived with this secret for years. His mother has lived with an idea of him for years. And suddenly both realities collide. The scene had to hold that discomfort without trying to solve it too quickly.
While writing it, I wanted to avoid making anyone a villain. The mother’s reaction is painful, but it comes from shock, conditioning, fear and a sense of betrayal. Rahul’s pain is also not performative. He is exhausted. He has probably imagined this moment a hundred times and dreaded every version of it. So the emotion of the scene comes from restraint. It’s not about speeches. It’s about a son wanting to be loved exactly as he is, and a mother realizing that the child she thought she fully knew has been protecting himself from her.
While filming, the focus was on intimacy and awkwardness. Real family confrontations are messy. People don’t always say the right things. They repeat themselves, they deflect, they hurt each other without meaning to. I wanted the scene to feel like that, not polished, not overly written, just painfully human. For me, the heart of the scene is not Rahul saying he is gay. It’s the question underneath it: “Can you still love me now that you know?”
That question is simple, but it carries years of fear. And that’s what we were trying to capture.
Sidharth Malhotra, Alia Bhatt and Fawad Khan launch Kapoor & Sons Trailer
