After a long time, I saw a wonderful movie that deals with the current affairs in the Malayali community. Director Lal Jose made a bold move to present such a brilliant movie. I should say, at times it gets into some emotional outbursts, but it is necessary to give the right shock treatment to the society.

I’m talking about the newly released “Achanurangaatha Veedu” by director Lal Jose, that has comedian Saleem Kumar in a serious role. I think Lal Jose is the first director who dared to deal with the religious controversies like conversion etc. He makes his stand clear that religion should not go after counting the numbers like political parties do. He does not spare the evil in Christianity and Hinduism. He also mentions that regardless of the religion, backward community is considered as backwards everywhere. But this is not the main storyline.

I’m not going to explain the storyline, but in the whole the movie is based on The Suryanelli case involved a 16-year-old girl who was allegedly sexually harassed and assaulted continuously for 40 days by 42 men in 1996.

I felt myself ashamed of being part of the Kerala community after watching this movie. Having 100% literacy rate in this state, do we really talk about these things? This movie shows the public reaction, the media’s interest etc in such a case. For sometime I thought how a family that is poor and has girls aged 13-18 can survive in this state. It raised a question in my mind, how safe are we in this state where powerful people (in politics, business and society) can do anything as they want??

People easily forgot Suryanelli. Some people may have night-time fantasies of that poor girl, the victim of the case. But the insult they had to suffer from these cowards and the media and the public – can that be easily forgotten? At least, for that family?

The great comedian in the Malayalam movie industry of our times, who was accused of another such case, Vithura sex scandal involving another minor girl, is still a favorite to us and nobody bothered to question him. Ajitha (an ex-naxalite and an active feminist in Kerala) once said in an interview in Mathrubhumi weekly that “I talked to some of the girls who have been victims of such business and I’ve heard that these days Jagathy Sreekumar prefer girls aged below 16”. Where are we going to???

In between, I saw people applauding for some dialogues and that is a sure sign of humanity which isn’t completely vanished from the Malayali community. I’ve never seen people applauding for such a movie where there are no super heroes or super dialogues (as we call some dumo dialogues). And I think it is Lal Jose’ brilliance to choose Saleem Kumar in the lead role, because the director didn’t have to compromise on the subject to adjust it to the likes of the actor.

It is a must-see, guys. All of you who know Malayalam should go see this wonderful movie. We need movies such as this more often. And congrats Lal Jose!! And thank you for making this eye-opening movie. You’re my man!!!

Suryanelli in Idukki district, Vithura in Thiruvananthapuram, Thoppumpadi in Ernakulam, Kiliroor and Kaviyoor in Kottayam district and Kottiyam in Kollam district — What’s next??

Is this a God’s own country or Dogs’ own country?

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/feb032005/n12.asp
http://www.indiatogether.org/2005/apr/wom-surynelli.htm
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mag/2005/06/26/stories/2005062600220400.htm