Performance Art or Protesting Act?

Blackening her face for 125 days was a new aesthetical mode that artist P.S. Jayamol adopted to create a social critique on the discriminated 'living' experiences…

Gopikrishna's World of Painful Paintings

Through the large windows, the foliage and tree top freshly washed by mid-summer rains, I see three owls calmly sleeping. The artist smiles at me. "Look, what…

Toms: The Man Behind Kerala's Beloved Mischief Makers

At the attic of Ravi Maman's house in our village, his son told me that there was a hidden treasure. A landlord's son, Ravi Maman was a literary scholar who…

Living in Limbo

About 12 years ago, when the Tom Hanks starrer 'The Terminal' hit the screens worldwide, we all came to know about the plight of a man who spent almost 18 years…

The Lover Boy of All Times

The word 'evergreen' connotes immortality. Perhaps, there is only one actor in Indian screen who has gained this title and that is our own Prem Nazir (1926-1989).…

Adding More Comedians & Villains to Our Political Theatre

Some actors in Kerala are in denial mode now, as trolls of political parties manipulated their images via Photoshop for election campaigning. While these actors…

Reviving Kathaprasangam: Will Technology Help?

Can Kathaprasangam have a new lease of life in Kerala’s cultural landscape? Television, which had killed the beauty of this performing art, has ironically…

Kanhaiya: The New Che in Kerala Campuses?

A small report in the corner of a national newspaper informs me that in Kerala’s college campuses Kanhaiya is the new Che.

Curiosity leads me further…

Kerala's Own Rockstar

There are two kinds of people. One, who look like immortals, and two, who look like mere mortals. Rest falls in between expectations and ordinariness, and they…

B.D. Dethan: Painter of Hard Times

Angst doesn't ooze out from the smiling personality of B.D. Dethan, the well-known artist from Thiruvananthapuram. But his paintings impart the inner turmoil…

Mohanlal the Blogger: a New Villain for Trolls

Just a day before the famous Attukal Pongala, the world’s largest religious congregation of women, there was a post on Facebook that said another 'pongala'…

Fragrance of Wild Flowers

There is a little bit of ONV Kurup (1931-2016) in a Malayalee’s life, exactly the way ‘uppu’ (salt) is in every drop of water. We may not always…

Migrant Laborers & Mob Justice: New Formula for Box Office Success

The box office success of `Amar Akbar Anthony’ (released in October 2015), directed by Nadirshah, underscores the cathartic effects a film provides to…

Life and Times of Rajan M. Krishnan

Obituaries are in a way the reviews of not only the lives and works of the departed ones, but also that of the writer himself. In a gap of exactly sixty days,…