Aviyal

In our school books we would’ve read about freedom fighters staging plays in various parts of the country to preach how the Colonial government was robbing them and to plant the idea of independence in them. Forward to 1960’s Tamil Nadu, we had the likes of Periyar, Aringar Anna, Karunanithi who used commercial cinema to spread Dravidian Ideology which gave them wide recognition among people and above said examples made people unite for a strong progressive cause irrespective of their cultural, religious backgrounds. Coming to present 2023, I recently saw this Movie called ‘The Kerala Story’ – whose one line ist “innocent women trapped by sex traffickers assisted by supposedly respectable people”. Sounds Interesting right? It would be, only if the makers decided to keep it that way. Recently there was a news headline that in Gujarat, around 40,000 women have disappeared over the last few years (most of them claimed to be saved and reunited with families) which could indeed be a perfec...

Disclaimer: A different take on Ponniyin Selvan. Fairly offensive to Mani saar kannis. Writer’s Block and How I Overcame It I guess most of you are aware of the term writer’s block. Here’s the definition of writer’s block according to Wikipedia: “ Writer's block is a non-medical condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author is either unable to produce new work or experiences a creative slowdown. Writer's block has various degrees of severity, from difficulty in coming up with original ideas to being unable to produce work for years .” While it may sound silly and made up by lazy writers to avoid admitting they are lazy, it is very real. I say this because I am experiencing it (or I am just lazy).   It is a fairly difficult condition to overcome. Some may not overcome writer’s block for years. For a brief period, I thought I would never overcome it. But then the miracle happened.  I watched Ponnyin Selvan a couple of days ago, and it removed my writer’s b...