‘Ghich Pich’ movie review: Inside the cramped father-son dynamic

In the march of civilisation, some dear words are in danger of falling by the wayside. One of them is Ghich Pich. It can be loosely translated as cramped space, but it is a state of mind that a single word can’t explain. Much like the nostalgia of the 1990s, young filmmakers continue to revisit it to tell coming-of-age stories.

It is a template where the focus is on providing an experience, and in the hands of director Ankur Singla, the emotional and physical architecture feels tangible and honest as he captures a slice of life from three Chandigarh boys grappling with hormonal rush and daddy issues.

Set in pre-smartphone India of the 90s, when posters of Chandrachur Singh and Sonali Bendre decorated the walls of the young, and Monsoon Wedding was playing at the neighbourhood theatre, the Commerce students are invested in their little dreams, oblivious to the ledger of life when Ghich Pich happens.

Kabir Nanda, Aryan Singh Rana, and Shhivam Kakar in a still from ‘Ghich Pich’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

The camera tracks into a classroom unannounced, and we start following the unhurried life of Gaurav (Shhivam Kakar), Anurag (Aryan Singh Rana), and Gurpreet (Kabir Nanda). Son of a merchant who is in the business of optics, the back-bencher Gaurav’s gaze of the world around him changes when he finds that his father (the late Nitesh Pandey) is in a homosexual relationship.

Meanwhile, the high-scoring Anurag is burdened by the expectations of a domineering father (Satyajit Sharma) who wants his son to jump multiple ‘orbits’ in one lifetime. He draws those orbits with water on the table, and their diaphanous nature becomes a metaphor for how fathers inadvertently saddle their kids with their unfulfilled dreams.

Gurpreet wants to be a cricketer, but he also wants to run after a classmate who appears way out of his league. Removing his turban and hair seems to be a solution for the young Sikh, but it strains his relationship with his devout father. As Anurag and Gurpreet discover, in Indian families, the father becomes synonymous with tradition; however, in Gaurav’s case, his father is a victim of custom, and he suffers from social prejudice.

Ankur generates the teenage angst, and the father-son dynamic doesn’t feel choreographed. The fathers are not cardboard, and the boys are being boys, making mistakes, feeling insecure, and finding ways around societal values. The film doesn’t judge its characters, and more importantly, doesn’t make a show of its progressive undertones. It seeks the middle ground where both parents and children can inform each other’s world views. It is not just the cover; the soul of the film, too, is very middle-class, capturing its value system and the little latent volcanoes families carry in their folds.

Kabir Nanda, Nishan Cheema and others in a still from ‘Ghich Pich’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Nitesh, in perhaps his last outing, moves one to tears with his portrayal of a vulnerable father. Every time one feels that Geeta Agrawal has essayed all shades of a mother, she comes up with a new one. She minimises the screen barrier between the audience and the actor. Satyajit is efficient, but it is the young actors who keep the emotional tapestry rough and realistic at the edges. That late-night outing without telling the parents, the mystery of blank calls on landlines, the anxiety of getting the report card signed by the father, and the ruse to spend some time in the medical room — the writing makes one relive the little joys of school days.

Written from the point of view of boys, the young girls in the film exist only to serve the emotional interests of the boys, and there are passages where it feels like we are flipping through someone’s family album. However, before nostalgia becomes nauseating, Ankur generates a sense of ghich pich between two generations.

Ghich Pich is currently running in theatres

Published – August 08, 2025 12:44 pm IST