Ramblings of a 20something girl

Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.  This quote from an essay by Oscar Wilde went through my mind when I saw an article in the newspaper (mentioned below) after watching the movie  Sthanarthi Sreekuttan.  . Sthanaarthi Sreekuttan is a Malayalam movie directed by Vinesh Viswanath in his debut, starring Aju Varghese, Saiju Kurup, Kannan Nayar, Anand Manmadhan, and Johny Antony, among others. The film follows the story of 7th-grade students at   K.R. Narayanan U.P. School in Kerala.  Sreekuttan (our hero), along with his best friends  Sharat, Anoop, and Anas, are the backbenchers of the class; t hey don't like to study (like every other kid), and would rather be out playing cricket or pulling pranks and inevitably getting into trouble. There is a constant struggle between this group and the good kids in the class, with whom they are always compared by the teachers. The most studious one, Ambadi, is their direct competition.  The main ...

It's July of 2025, and it's time for my annual review of movies I watched last year. The movies released last year were extremely interesting. No points for guessing which Indian film industry shone through last year ( hint: it's not the Hindi film industry :p) Honestly, there were so many good movies I watched last year, it took me a lot of effort to pick just a few for this list due to space constraints. Anyway, if you don't find your favorite movie here, don't fret. I might have watched it, or I will in 10 years :p  Now that it's here, read on!  Malayalam Of course, I will start with the Malayalam film industry (it's my bias, I know). The Malayalam film industry went through an absolute whirlwind last year, with its back-to-back record-breaking successes. Were there bad movies too? Oh, absolutely! But here's my list of movies that made me laugh, cry, and go through all sorts of emotions!  1. Premalu    I didn't like this film (JK!). It's a mo...

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...

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 ...

              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...

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...