Set within the charged social landscape of Ahmedabad, writer-director Aarti Neharsh’s debut feature “Kanda” or “No Onions” uses psychological horror to probe questions of purity, caste and domestic control.
The film has Shakun Batra (“Gehraiyaan”) of Jouska Films and Dimpy Agrawal of Gubbara Entertainment (co-producer “Shadowbox,” Perspectives at Berlinale 2025) attached as co-producers. “No Onions” has been pre-selected for the Sundance Development Track and is currently in late development. With partial funding in place, the filmmakers are seeking co-producers, financiers and sales partners at WAVES Film Bazaar – the market component of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) – with the goal of moving into pre-production mid-2026.
Neharsh’s script follows a pregnant woman whose growing cravings for foods forbidden in her faith begin to disrupt the order and ritual of her devout household. As her desires intensify, long-standing codes of discipline — dietary, religious, and familial — start to crack, revealing the buried tensions within a seemingly harmonious home.
For Neharsh, the story is deeply personal. Raised in Ahmedabad, she recalls the quiet but rigid practices of purity woven into everyday life. “I remember friends sitting apart during lunch, refusing to touch certain tiffins; women being isolated during their periods even in the most “modern” homes. Ahmedabad itself — with its segregated markets, “pure veg” tables, and invisible social divides — carries this obsession of purity. Only later did I realise how deeply that was tied to caste and a social segregation of people,” she says.
With “No Onions”, she reframes vegetarianism, often understood internationally as an ethical lifestyle, through the Indian lens of caste purity and religious discipline. “No Onions” aims to be a slow-burning psychological-horror that turns the domesticity of a house into a stage for an eerie unravelling while asking whether the hunger of a woman, or the order that seeks to crush it is more horrifying.
Neharsh approaches the film as a genre piece rooted in the rhythms of domestic life. She says, “I’ve always been drawn to genre films, especially Korean horrors, because they allow you to explore deeply personal and social ideas within an engaging, cinematic frame. That’s what I wanted to do with my debut feature.”
Her debut short “The Song We Sang”, also set in Ahmedabad, had a successful festival run, winning awards at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, Dharamshala International Film Festival, and a Special Jury Mention at the London Indian Film Festival. Neharsh has been directing commercials alongside developing her feature debut.