Offering new possibilities in reading film soundscapes, Namita assembles an illustrative archive to discuss how Malayalam cinema employs Carnatic music to “legitimise” bodies otherwise deemed subaltern.
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Category: Issues
Love in the Time of ‘Love Jihad’
What does the ‘love jihad’ narrative mean for the people who are often forgotten amid all the fearmongering–the lovers themselves? Maggie Paul draws on her life to reflect on the insidious logics behind the idea of ‘love jihad’ and how it has taken root in Kerala.
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The Perpetrator of Sexual Violence and the Construction of Masculinity: An Introduction
In the second piece in Ala’s ‘Speaking Otherwise’ translation series, we translate a piece from the historic Sanghaditha feminist magazine where a psychology expert asks: How does our society and its norms around masculinity produce perpetrators of sexual violence?
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Redefining the ‘Mappila Revolts’: Abbas Panakkal’s Musaliar King and the Resurrection of a Silenced Past
The Mappila rebellion of 1921 has been the subject of much debate and analysis in the historiography of Malabar. Colonial accounts at the time and popular discourse thereafter portrayed the rebellion solely as an instance of religious fanaticism. Fazal Rahman reviews Abbas Panakkal’s 2024 book, Musaliar King, which meticulously examines primary data to counter this image, showing instead that the rebellion was a milestone in anti-colonial resistance in India.
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Why a Tiger Attack Matters More than a Road Accident
Annual road deaths number in the thousands in Kerala, yet a single wildlife fatality sparks a political crisis. Harigovind argues this disparity reveals how spectacle obscures systemic failures, and how the state uses wildlife conflict to distract from the structural violence killing those at the margins.
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The Masculinist Spaces of the Judiciary
Ala kicks off its new translation series, ‘Speaking Otherwise’, with a 2013 piece from the feminist magazine, Sanghaditha. Here, two women legal professionals draw on their experiences defending domestic violence survivors in Kerala’s lower courts to provide a grounded perspective of a foundational question that feminists raise: is the law a tool of change, or a tool for enforcing the status quo?
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Art as an Archive of Memory: Devotion, History, and Resistance in the Irupathettaam Onam of Ochira
Ahnas offers a visual and experiential entry into the spectacular festival of Irupathettaam Onam of Ochira. At a moment when dislocated histories and reinterpreted myths are increasingly mobilized for divisive political ends, the article finds value in staying with the ‘feeling’ of belongingness and participation that a festival can generate and an art can nurture.
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ഗൾഫ് വീടുകളിൽ നിന്ന് എൻ ആർ ഐ ഫ്ളാറ്റുകളിലേക്ക്: കൊച്ചിയുടെ ‘ലോകോത്തര’ നഗര വികസനം
ഇതുവരെ കേട്ടിട്ടിട്ടില്ലാത്ത ആഡംബരസൗകര്യങ്ങളുള്ള ഫ്ലാറ്റുകൾ പ്രവാസികൾക്കായി മത്സരിച്ചു വിളംബരംചെയ്യുന്ന പരസ്യബോർഡുകളിൽ നമ്മുടെയൊക്കെ കണ്ണുടക്കിയിട്ടുണ്ടാകും. ഈ ഫ്ളാറ്റുകളുടെ വിപണിയുടെ ലോകത്തിലേക്കു എത്തിനോക്കുന്നതിലൂടെ കേരളത്തിലെ മാറുന്ന സാമൂഹ്യ-സാമ്പത്തവ്യവസ്ഥയുടെയും പ്രവാസി കുടിയേറ്റങ്ങളുടെയും കഥപറയുകയാണ് സിദ്ധാർഥ് മേനോൻ.
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Mammootty and The Construction of The Ageless Malayali Hero
What does the public perception and sensationalisation of Mammootty’s ageless appearance tell us about masculinity in today’s Kerala? Geethu Thomas writes about male actors’ negotiation of age in Kerala’s film industry.
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Allegories of Subjective Transformation: Reimagining Family in Malayalam Cinema
B. Abhijith traces how recent Malayalam cinema reconfigures the family beyond generational hierarchies, turning it into a site of negotiation within a changing social world. Through films like Kumbalangi Nights, Falimy, and Pranaya Vilasam, he shows how shifting parenthood, individuality, and digital self-expression shape new middle-class affective collectives.
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