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New Book Alert- Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

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Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagasawa (translated by Eric Ozawa) is a charming 150-page book that follows the life of the protagonist, Takako. Takako is a 20-something girl, working in Tokyo, who seems to have her life sorted with a well-paying job and a sweet boyfriend who works in the same office (talk about win-win situations). But of course, life doesn't hand you wins all the time. Soon enough, we find out her boyfriend found someone else to get engaged to and marry, leaving poor Takako heartbroken and miserable. Unable to face her ex at the office, Takako quits her job and retreats to her lonely room in Tokyo. Days and weeks pass, until she receives an unexpected call from her uncle, Satoru, who runs a second-hand bookshop (Morisaki Bookshop, get it?) in Jimbocho, Japan's literary town. He asks her to come and help him at the bookshop, hoping to get her mind off things.  As reluctant as Takako is, she soon finds herself at the bookshop. Surrounded by books in a...
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10 years of Premam

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In 2023, when I went to Kerala for the Kochi Biennale, I went to this place called Pepper House as part of the Biennale exhibition. As we entered the place, it almost seemed too familiar. Of course, I had never been to this place before (I checked with my parents), and yet somehow I knew this place existed in my mind.  After much brain-wracking and a little investigation, I had my Eureka moment and realized that this was the place where Premam was shot. The bakery that Nivin Pauly owns in Fort Kochi in the third act of the movie was situated here.    Excitedly, when I narrated this incident to my friend, he called me a fool for knowing so much about a random movie. But Premam wasn't just a random movie. It was so much more than that. . Premam completed 10 years since its release yesterday, and remembering its dialogues, songs — yes, even the café Nivin Pauly owned — is just a testament to how much Premam influenced an entire generation. For a movie that had no ...
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Nobody asked for my review- PonMan

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              Ponman . (Spoilers ahead) Ponman, literally meaning Gold Man, is a Malayalam dark-comedy film  with a lesson as valuable as gold . The directorial debut of Jothish Shankar, it stars Basil Joseph, Lijomol Jose, Sajin Gopu, Anand Manmadhan and Deepak Parambol and is based on the novel, "Naalanchu Cheruppakar", by GR Indugopan. The story follows the problems of a family in Kollam: a widowed mother, her daughter Steffi Graf (Lijomol Jose), who is unmarried at 32, and her son Bruno, an unemployed, violent, and communist brat who cares about nothing but his party and communism.  What problems?  The first issue is Steffi's marriage. To arrange Steffi's marriage, they must provide 25 pavan (sovereigns) of gold as dowry, as asked by the groom's family. Demanding dowry is as common as asking for a glass of water. At 32—considered quite late for marriage—Steffi is not even asked about her wishes and is instead forced into it. Her fami...
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Nobody asked for my review- Unda

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I recently watched the Malayalam movie ‘Unda’ and I absolutely loved it. Read on to find out why you should watch it too! Unda (transl. Bullet) is a 2019 Malayalam film directed by Khalid Rahman. Rahman's second film after his debut, "Anuraga Karikkin Vellam" (another movie I loved) is based on a real incident that occurred during the time of the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections when a police unit from Kerala led by Sub-inspector Manikandan C. P. (played by Mammootty), was sent to Bastar, a Maoist-affected area of Chhattisgarh, as part of election duty. The film stars Mammootty, Shine Tom Chacko, Dileesh Pothan, Rony David, Abhiram Radhakrishnan, Omkar Das Manikpuri, and Arjun Ashokan among others with cameos from Asif Ali, Vinay Forrt. The police unit from Kerala initially appears nonchalant about the situation. However, one night the realization of their dwindling supply of bullets (unda) make them grasp the enormity of their task. Whether they manage to conduct the elections p...
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Orange you glad October is here?

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If you'd asked my 11-year-old self this question, the answer would have been a resounding YES. October was filled with so many things.  As school students, I remember we would have had just finished with our half-yearly exams in September which meant there was no exam stress looming over us. October meant practices for our annual day play and sports day races. Exchange students would come to our school, giving us a chance to see boys (since we were in an all-girls school).We’d spend free hours in the art room painting diyas, enjoy extra-long practices for Dussehra and Diwali assemblies, and look forward to the week-long Diwali holidays, complete with plenty of sweets. It was the month of perfect weather for lazing on the school grounds during recess, going out for picnics, and more. Before I knew it, October quickly became one of my favorite months of the year. A month, we all would look forward to.  As I write this, it's almost the end of October. Diwali will be celebrated at...
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Nobody asked for my review- Vaazha

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This weekend I watched Vaazha. Read on to find out my thoughts about this film.  Vaazha: Biopic of a Billion Boys Vaazha- Biopic of a Billion Boys (2024) ' Vaazha ’ literally means a banana plant in Malayalam. Metaphorically, it refers to unfruitful or good-for-nothing children. Its most popular usage is in a Malayalam adage, one which most people would have heard in their childhood from their parents:  "N inneyokke undaakkunna nerathu oru 'vaazha' vechirunnenkil oru kolayenkilum kittiyene." Translation- "Instead of creating you, I should have spent that time to plant a banana sapling, so that I could have at least gotten a bunch of bananas (I could sell and get money from)" . Vaazha, a coming-of-age dramedy directed by Anand Menen (also known for Gauthamante Radham), is about the lives of five boys.  The movie showcases the father-son relationships that these five boys have with their fathers.  The five boys - Ajo Thomas, Moosa, Vishnu Radhakrishnan, Ab...
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Movies through 2023

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Firstly, I know it's July 2024, and I'm terribly late with my list of 2023 movies. But it's not like you all were waiting for this list :p. So now that it's here, read on :) 2023 was a great year for movies (2024 is already better, I cannot wait to write my 2024 list, hehe). The Malayalam film industry has taken the mantle up once again, but I have to say that Hindi films were pretty good too, if not better.  So, in no particular order, here are my favorite movies from 2023. 1 . Romancham For someone who does not like watching horror movies because they're very boring (and not because I'm a coward in real life okay?), and also because I have not seen a lot of good horror comedies (Stree, 2018 is an exception), Romancham came as a pleasant surprise and what I would call a brilliantly set-up horror comedy. Jithu Madhavan, in his directorial debut,  traces the real-life story of himself and his friends back when they used to live in Bangalore as young 20-year-olds....
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