Meet Homebound director Neeraj Ghaywan, a Hyderabad BTech and Symbiosis Pune MBA. He once hesitated to say his full name

For many filmmakers, success arrives after years of pursuing a career in cinema through film schools, assistant roles, and festival circuits. Neeraj Ghaywan’s journey, however, began far from movie sets or scripts. Long before Cannes screenings and international applause, he was navigating office corridors, corporate meetings, and performance reviews, living a life that looked stable and respectable, but felt quietly incomplete. The global recognition he enjoys today came after years of self-doubt, personal concealment, and a difficult decision to walk away from everything familiar.

Journey of Neeraj Ghaywan from engineering to Oscars

Born and raised in Hyderabad, Neeraj followed a path that would reassure most Indian families. According to The Hindu report, he completed a BTech in engineering and later pursued an MBA from Symbiosis, Pune. With these qualifications, he landed a corporate job at Tech Mahindra. On paper, it was a well-settled life. Yet, beneath the routine of deadlines and boardrooms, Neeraj felt creatively stifled. Filmmaking, he realised, was not a distant ambition but something he could no longer ignore.



Eventually, he made a decision that many would consider reckless, he quit his job without a clear safety net. Determined to learn cinema from the ground up, Neeraj began assisting filmmaker Anurag Kashyap on Gangs of Wasseypur. The experience exposed him to the realities of filmmaking, from long shoots to narrative discipline, and helped him understand how stories are built from lived experience.

Masaan and a breakthrough moment

That learning paid off in 2015, when Neeraj made his directorial debut with Masaan. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and received a standing ovation, instantly placing him on the global cinema map. For many, Masaan was a moving story about love, loss, and social realities in Varanasi. For Neeraj, it was also deeply personal, though there was a part of his own story he was still not ready to fully share.

The silence behind the success

Neeraj was born into a Dalit family, a fact he kept hidden for much of his life. Fearing exclusion and judgment, he avoided using his full surname and often sidestepped conversations about his background. In classrooms, workplaces, and social circles, he chose invisibility as a form of protection. Even people close to him, including collaborators, were unaware of this part of his identity.

In the same interview with The Hindu, Neeraj opened up about those years, explaining that the fear of being treated differently followed him from childhood into adulthood. He described how pretending to belong to an upper-caste identity gave him access, but also created a constant sense of anxiety and self-betrayal. Over time, he realised that the shame did not belong to him, but to a society that forces people into hiding.

Reclaiming identity through storytelling
After Masaan received international acclaim, Neeraj slowly began to speak openly about his Dalit identity. That shift was shown in his work. His characters increasingly represented people who are rarely given space in mainstream cinema. Deepak, the crematorium worker in Masaan, Pallavi, the Dalit professor in Made in Heaven, and Bharti, the queer Dalit woman in Geeli Pucchi, were written with complexity and dignity, not pity.

Neeraj has often said that education, opportunity, and acceptance are privileges in India, not guarantees. Through his films, he challenges audiences to confront uncomfortable truths about caste, power, and belonging.

Homebound and global recognition

In 2025, Neeraj returned to Cannes with Homebound, a film backed by legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese. The screening received a nine-minute standing ovation, an emotional moment that marked how far he had come, not just professionally, but personally. Homebound has since been selected as India’s official entry for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars.

Today, Neeraj Ghaywan stands as one of the few Hindi filmmakers who openly acknowledges his Dalit identity. No longer hesitant to say his full name, he continues to tell stories rooted in honesty and lived experience. However, the movie missed out on International Feature Film Nomination, but we are very proud of him and the movie.