Janani

Finally, after a long wait, my book titled 'Ticket to Kerala: The Story of Malayalam Cinema', which looks at the history of the industry as well as its contemporary works, is set for release this month, after the Kerala Assembly elections. The pre-order link is up on Amazon (amazon.in/Ticket-Kerala-Stor… ) When Rupa Publications (@Rupa_Books ) reached out to me to write a book on Malayalam cinema for those outside Kerala who have begun discovering it, I felt that this was an opportunity to collect my thoughts on all that I have witnessed in these years, ever since I started reviewing Malayalam films for The Hindu in 2012, and as an avid movie buff since the early 1990s. Reviewing involves the occupational hazard of having to watch an abnormally large number of bad films that one would usually avoid, given a choice. But the perks of reviewing during an industry’s purple patch are the inevitable good or great films that would release every month, at the least. That golden run has now continued unabated for over a decade and a half. Reviewing has given me a ringside view of the industry’s journey during these eventful years of remarkable change and churn. This book has been written with the intention of introducing Malayalam cinema beyond its immediate past to an audience outside of Kerala. The recent films from this sliver of a state in the southern corner of India has garnered much attention, much more than at any point in its close to a hundred years of existence. Yet, due to various reasons, the attention has been focused mostly on what has come out of the film industry after 2020. The time I spent on writing this book, using every waking hour left after the daily work as well as all my off days during this period, has been richly rewarding. It gave me an opportunity to rewatch some of my old favourites, to watch films I have missed over the years, to read memoirs of filmmakers, actors and technicians, to meet and speak to some of them, and also to revisit all that I have written on cinema over the past many years. I hope that the book which came out of it will be as rewarding for the readers as the process has been for me.