My Kaala

Christina Dhanaraj
2 min readJun 19, 2018

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I grew up being wary of Indian/Tamizh movies. I couldn’t relate or emote to any of them. None of the women looked like me, none of the stories resembled mine. I escaped into the random mindlessness of Hollywood, laughing to white humor and being delightfully appalled at gore. But what about Ratnam, my friends would ask, don’t you like his movies? What about Ratnam? You mean his mildly rebellious Brahmin heroine that had filter coffee without brushing her teeth was somehow relatable? Or an Alaipayuthe-singing, mangalsutra-tying love was somehow beautiful? His imagination, it did nothing to me. Neither did Menon’s. I regretted watching his insufferable love stories. The Christian girl of his protagonist’s dreams in Vinnaithandi Varruvaaiya was a light-skinned Syrian Malayalee, who belonged to a family that owned an individual house in urban Chennai. It was played by a Brahmin woman. How and why would this tug at my heartstrings?

Expert reviewers of diverse identities have said or implied that #Kaala is a political movie. In all honesty, I have no idea what they are talking about. I saw a mongrel that looked a bit like my Justin, standing next to Kaala. I loved my Tamizh boys doing some cool rap. I was upset that Kaala was attracted to a savarna-looking, woke woman; that he had had her name tattooed. I heaved a sigh of relief when he came back home to Selvi; like as though I was Selvi — loud-mouthed, dark-skinned, and fierce in her loving. I rolled my eyes to Zarina’s performative wokeness at the funeral. Please, just cut the crap, I muttered. I fell for Kaala’s style and his black veshti. And his sandals that so looked like my father’s. I brimmed out of my frame when I heard the score say, thil iruntha vaada. I saw sun burnt faces that looked my folks. I almost decided to quit my salaried life to take up my cause. I lapped up those parai drums. I couldn’t wait for the blue, after the black and the red. I cried all the time. I had goosebumps. My stomach churned. My heart missed a beat.

This wasn’t a movie. This was a story about my people. This was personal as fuck. How can this be boxed as political? Or are you saying my personal is your political?

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