Opinion ‘The Kerala Story’: Skip it or don’t – the film poses no challenge to Kerala’s diverse social fabric

There are also packs keen to pounce on regurgitated themes. In such instances, no attempt is made to pass an idea through a feasibility test, or even run some numbers to gauge its viability. Voila! The so-called “timeliness” of a theme dictates that it be made into a full-blown movie. And thus,The Kerala Story is born. This article, though, will look at it as a “‘Keral’ ka story” to keep in sync with the sensibilities of the product storming theatres this week.

Online activism of a particular kind has enabled the trailer of the film to garner a record number of views within a few days of its release on YouTube, according to its director Sudipto Sen. “Only truth, honesty and commitment” — he tweeted the noble intentions behind the project. However, within a few days of the tweet, the filmmaker’s searing righteousness came into play and a grand number of 32,000 girls who were missing and had, according to the makers of the film, been recruited by ISIS, skydived to merely three. Social media zombies and online rumours may have revealed that 31, 997 of those returned from their respective imaginary flights of fantasy and had landed safely at various ports of their own calling. However, thanks to these spurts of so-called “organic” curiosity among YouTube activists and to the shock and awe of its makers, the film sped past Shah Rukh Khan’s impending release “Jawan” on IMDB to be tagged the most awaited new movie.

With the undue publicity garnered by the film, thanks to vainglorious pronouncements by politicians of all hues, the earlier bleak, soggy financial prospects for the film have now somewhat brightened and hastened the impatience of the makers as they wait breathlessly for its opening day numbers. But pray, what are the well-meaning politicians in Kerala afraid of? What is it that a fictitious film will do that the state will have to suffer much?

That a film “inspired” by the lives of a few women is going to scissor its way, cutting into the taut social, religious, harmonious fabric of the state is an unfounded dread? That a state that nurtures and prides itself on its religious co-existence is going to wither away? Strands of bigotry and religious narcissism continue to test this framework of Kerala’s society, but these remain only attempts. The pragmatism of everyday politics in Kerala necessitates that political parties go the extra mile to ensure that the fruits of development reach all regions and cross sections of the populace irrespective of religion. If the makers of the film had taken the trouble to visit the districts of Kerala, they would have come across large numbers of women in strong leadership positions spread across panchayats and municipalities. To promote a culture of denuding women of their agency and incapable of making informed decisions is a blot not just on women of the state but across the country. Despite simmering fault lines that are being exploited by vested interests, those behind the film have to contend with an inherently resilient social fabric that has sustained across political, social and religious cleavages over many years.

There are so many other stories that define Kerala. The real Kerala story is about the upcoming Malayalam release, 2018 – Everyone is a Hero, directed by Jude Anthany Joseph that is coincidentally opening this week. The film looks at the weave of humanity that came together as one during the “once in a century” floods that hit the state five years back. The real Kerala story was about Arikomban, the rice-loving behemoth of a tusker that was safely captured last week with the help of four other trained captive elephants that increasingly had the state on edge. Sen’s film is just an unreal blip in the steady stream of Bollywood narratives that saunter to a nearby cinema hall every week, watch it if you want or skip it, either choice is a harmless one, and only ours to make.

Mathew is a script consultant based in New Delhi