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Opinion ‘Lokah Chapter One: Chandra’, and why Kerala can’t exorcise the yakshi from its mind

While the film’s imagination of the yakshi draws on several Western elements, Malayali folktales about the ‘monstrous feminine’ offer a more complicated picture, shaped as much by caste and male fantasy, as by the thrill of the dangerous and transgressive

Lokah Chapter One Chandra Movie Review & Rating: The Kalyani Priyadarshan and Naslen-starer serves as the first instalment in the planned Wayfarer Cinematic Universe.The yakshi featured in Lokah is the most famous of all: Kalliyankattu Neeli, also known as Panchavankattu Neeli (Credit: Facebook/@DQsWayfarerfilms)
September 2, 2025 05:53 PM IST First published on: Sep 2, 2025 at 05:53 PM IST

Once upon a time, two Nambuthiri Brahmins were on their way to the Thrissur Pooram festival. It was late in the evening when they encountered two surpassingly beautiful women, who told them it was dangerous to travel through that area at night — it was haunted by the fell female spirits known as yakshis — and invited the pair to spend the night at their house. The two men were given separate rooms, and each was joined by one of the women. One Brahmin, Kaladiyil Bhattathiri, was instantly eaten; the other survived only because he was carrying a palm-leaf manuscript of the Devi Mahatmya. On the other hand, when another Brahmin, Vayaskara Chaturvedi Bhattathiri, exorcised a yakshi who was possessing the Zamorin of Calicut, she followed him home and lived as his invisible lover. When he grew old, they grew apart and she left him, but not without a parting gift: A yakshi daughter, who went on to become the Vayaskara family’s tutelary deity (kuladevata).

Between them, these two stories from Aithihyamala, the collection of Kerala folktales compiled by Kottarathil Sankunni in the early 20th century, sum up most of the typical characteristics of the yakshi, a figure from medieval folklore who continues to fascinate Malayalis in 2025, as seen in the new film Lokah Chapter One: Chandra. The yakshi, described by scholars as an example of the “monstrous feminine”, evokes both danger and sexuality, but also divinity and protection — perhaps showing some connection to the more benign conception of yakshi or yakshini found elsewhere in India. If the element of danger can be correlated with the historical geography of Kerala, where travellers had little choice but to wander through dark forests where tigers and bandits prowled, the sexual aspect is an artefact of pre-modern social reality. In the Manipravalam literature of medieval Kerala, Brahmin and Kshatriya men write about their relations with Shudra women; in the yakshi tales, the male protagonists — particularly those who manage to make a conquest of the yakshi — are generally Brahmins. In the story of Kaladiyil Bhattathiri mentioned above, the Brahmins ask the yakshis if there are any Shudra houses nearby where they can stay, and the Shudra-coded women address them deferentially. Chaturvedi Bhattathiri had a son by his swajatiya (same-caste) wife, who was entrusted with ensuring the proper worship of his yakshi sister. Thus, in most cases, it would be a mistake to read anything feminist into the old tales; this is about caste, male fantasies and the thrill of the dangerous and transgressive.

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Several of these aspects can be seen in Lokah’s representation of the yakshi, including caste, although there is nothing very sexual in it. At the same time, it’s heavily influenced by Western ideas about vampires — yakshis aren’t burnt by the Sun, nor do they transmit their condition via bites. And a yakshi doesn’t just drink your blood, she eats you, leaving nothing but your nails (nakham) and tuft of hair (shikha).

Perhaps best described as Supernatural-meets-the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Lokah is something of a departure from the long lineage of yakshi films in Malayalam, starting with, well, Yakshi (1968), an adaptation of Malayattoor Ramakrishnan’s novel of the same name. This is a case of the yakshi-as-wife, although she is still out to drink her husband’s blood. In the classic Sreekrishna Parunthu (1984), black magician Mohanlal encounters the bloodthirsty Vada Yakshi, the tutelary Kutumba Yakshi and others as he strives to stay celibate to maintain his powers. In Brahmarakshas (1990), the sexual element is cranked up to the level of soft pornography as the spirit of a Brahmin woman destroys the men who wronged her while being romanced by a Nambuthiri played by Devan — a modern-day Chaturvedi Bhattathiri in kurta-pyjama. Aakasha Ganga (1999) is that one film that codified all the yakshi tropes and did a decent job of frightening children at the time, this writer included. Soudamini (2003) is not for the faint of heart; it’s for the true yakshi connoisseur who isn’t afraid of ‘B’ or even ‘C’ movies.

The yakshi featured in Lokah is the most famous of all: Kalliyankattu Neeli, also known as Panchavankattu Neeli. Today, most know her from the 2004-05 TV series Kadamattathu Kathanar, in which Neeli is the nemesis of the title character, a legendary Christian priest-magician. But it’s unlikely that the original Neeli story had anything to do with Kathanar. It’s an old, old tale told on a wider canvas, rooted in the Tamil country, and known in various forms as far afield as Kanchipuram. The villadichan pattukal or thekkan pattukal  — ballads in a language between Malayalam and Tamil, sung in erstwhile South Travancore — are key to exploring this, and Thikkurissi Gangadharan’s 2011 book Venadinte Kathaganangal (Ballads of Venadu) provides invaluable source material and commentary. Yakshi tales form a whole genre of these ballads, and other yakshis depicted include legendary satis as well as the “manly” warrior-queen Purusha Devi. They are treated with rather more reverence and less randiness than those in the Nambuthiri stories. Neeli’s own tale is that of a devadasi murdered by her priestly husband (who is bitten by a snake and dies shortly afterwards). She and her brother are reincarnated as children of the Chola king but are found out as evil spirits when they start eating thousands of cattle each night. They are abandoned in a forest, where her brother dies after villagers chop down the tree he inhabited. Neeli kills her reincarnated husband and slaughters the villagers, but eventually settles down as a benevolent deity at Muppandal, a village in Kanyakumari district.

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There are many versions of Neeli’s story; C V Raman Pillai’s 1891 novel Marthandavarma tells a different one, while Lokah weaves an entirely new tale. But what stands out is that Neeli is something above and beyond your run-of-the-mill yakshi. In his poem ‘Neeli’ — as much an ode to Nanchinadu, once part of Travancore and now Kanyakumari district, as it is to Neeli herself — the Malayalam poet Ezhacherry Ramachandran elevates her to greater proportions still: He depicts her as the essence of Tamil femininity, and makes allusions to Kannaki of the Cilappatikaram and even the goddess Chandi. Neeli is vast enough to contain these multitudes, from the heroine of the ballads to MCU-style superheroine, complete with post-credits scenes. As Ezhacherry writes, “Ninakkethra avathaarangal ekajanmatthilum”. How many avatars you have, even in a single birth.

rohan.manoj@expressindia.com

 

Rohan Manoj has been with the opinion team of The Indian Express since January 2025. He writes on hi... Read More

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