Gali Guleiyan

Khuddoos is a reclusive, middle-aged mechanic who keeps a careful watch over his Old Delhi neighbourhood from behind a mosaic of hidden cameras. His sole companion is Ganeshi, a practical friend who checks on him and helps manage his daily needs, keeping a quiet rhythm to Khuddoos’s solitary life. The mood of the streets shifts when his estranged brother, Shaukat, arrives with a practical request: he needs an old necklace from their mother for his daughter’s wedding.

That same night, as Khuddoos searches for the necklace, a distant household becomes the center of his attention for a far different reason—he overhears the sounds of domestic violence from a nearby home. The house belongs to Liakat and his wife Saira, with Liakat working as a butcher and repeatedly losing his temper with his son, Idris. Idris, a bright and curious boy, roams the neighbourhood, peering into neighbours’ lives and clinging to his mother, even as the fear of his father’s outbursts lingers over him.

Khuddoos shares what he hears with Ganeshi, who urges him to step back from other people’s troubles and focus on his own work. Shaukat returns later, criticizing Khuddoos’s solitary, dishevelled life and his growing obsession. Despite his best intentions, Khuddoos’s fixation on Idris intensifies, but he struggles to locate the boy consistently. The pursuit drains him—sleep eludes him, health falters, and the pressures mount until he can’t keep up with the rent on his workshop, which ultimately closes.

Meanwhile, Liakat grows more lenient with Idris, easing punishments and showing a softer, troubled side that contrasts with his earlier brutality. Idris, still uneasy, senses the fragility beneath his father’s veneer. The tension peaks when Idris discovers his father’s affair with another woman and realizes a plan to run away with his mother and younger brother. In a crude moment of accusation, Idris blames his father for the baby’s supposed death and is violently beaten again.

Idris makes a bid to flee at the railway station, but Liakat catches him and administers another brutal beating. Back on the streets, Khuddoos continues his fruitless search for Idris’s home, moving from door to door in a bid to place the boy, only to return defeated and increasingly disoriented. A night of trouble culminates in Khuddoos’s arrest after neighbours complain about the danger he poses, though Ganeshi secures his release and counsel him to detach from Idris’s fate and reclaim his own life.

Then the story takes a chilling turn: Idris strangles Liakat, ending the father’s tyranny, and Khuddoos, hearing the struggle, somehow breaks through a wall to reach Idris’s dwelling, only to discover water pipes behind the wall instead of the room he imagines. In a quiet, haunting moment, he dusts off an old photograph that reveals Idris, Liakat, Saira, and the baby together—exposing a truth that had been buried: Idris was actually Khuddoos’s younger self, and the traumatic events that separated them from the family are forever linked to this hidden past. After days pass, when the neighbours and Ganeshi finally return to the house, Khuddoos is missing, and the same photo holds the key to the long-buried history that binds these lives together.

Last Updated: October 01, 2025 at 13:05