Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta
During a period of COVID-induced self-isolation this year, I watched Malayalam movies. They were like a balm. The backwaters are beautiful; the people are engagingly real. The stories are intensely local, set on the blurred boundaries between rural and urban that is so peculiar to Kerala.
These are ensemble stories, perhaps because Kerala is in some ways more egalitarian than many other places; also because that’s how communities live. There are awkward brothers, inquisitive grandmothers, and a teenager who plays football, cooks dinner and yearns for his mum. I love that a person called Baby can be a woman or a man, diminutive or large in size, Hindu or Muslim or Christian by faith. A character can drive an auto, be a friend, and have a hobby, all at once. Identity doesn’t feel rigidly fixed. People can change. Can it be that people are complex?