SHYAM PUSHKARAN’S PALACE OF STORIES

Perfect Stories of an Imperfect World

 There was a period in Malayalam cinema when the audience wasn’t sure of the criteria they had to choose while going for a movie. Should it be the director, the actor, the scriptwriter, or the producer? Probably because there was a dearth inconsistency when it came to all of this. It was disheartening to see it crawling towards a dip basking in the glory of its laurelled past. Some movies entertained us but didn’t speak to us, when they started speaking to us, we discovered new facets of entertainment and named the phase “new-gen”. The phase wasn’t stagnant, not even the pandemic making it so. Starting with Salt and Pepper to the recently released Joji, along with a plethora of the so-called new-gen directors, it is Shyam Pushkaran who built his own empire. An empire with a palace of stories, the stories that speak of an imperfect world.

Short story over novels, and nonfiction over fiction. Shyam Pushkaran’s stories are a strange yet real combination of the former in both choices. It holds the sweetness of a short story and strangeness of reality, it speaks life, gently pokes at the societal norms, walks us through kindness, just to say that humanity stands above it all. It exists in the strangest of situations in a Pushkaranisque scenario, and that is the reason we root for the thief (Prasad) when he says the most insightful thought about hunger looking at a young boy. It is the same reason we don’t vouch for Joji even we understand that his actions are a result of patriarchy which Pushkaran questions through the grey shades of Joji.

Going Local

So, it is not only the innocence of the people but the nature of the place that speaks in his stories. We see the innocence of Idukki in everybody including the one who sells the footwear, and fluidity in the brothers of Kumbalangi. They are not awry to start afresh just like the water that surrounds them. While it could have happened anywhere, Kasargod seemed picture-perfect for the dryness of the events Prasad had to witness in the police station. We root for the people and places in each of his stories based on how rooted they are, which makes all the difference.

Those Who Do Not Wait To Fly

The women in Pushkaran’s palace aren’t caged or are changing the moment they meet their prince charming. May it be Maya of Salt and Pepper, Jimsy of Maheshinte Prathikaram, Aparna of Mayanadhi, Sreeja of Thondimuthalum Drikshakshiyum, or even Babymol of Kumbalangi Nights, are women who are right in their terms. They stand up for their love, and like Tessa, they march on when they are betrayed. There is never a forceful induction of empowerment. His women revolve around the principle that they are already powerful. Some from within, some who exercise the power, some in search of what they know they have all in a system that is flawed with patriarchy, toxic masculinity, and defined borders. Maya has her insecurities, Jimsy has her blunt criticisms, the dream, and struggles of Aparna, and the fierce naivety in Babymol that lets her speak her mind.

Questions and not Answers

While Pushkaran’s scripts are lauded for questioning the toxic masculinity engraved well into all the systems not just movies, it is also an honest trajectory of the changing sensibilities of a young generation and another generation that is willing to change. It tries to provide answers if not direct, by entering our thought process and plays a crucial role in letting those questions seep in through the minds of the masses. And that we call a “mass” move. We see men crying, their vulnerabilities exposed, they are unapologetically flawed and it sets a new normal in the “new generation” of movies.

His palace is contemporary yet classic in the architecture of movies. It sheds new light on the ones which were considered ordinary. Poetic or not there is justice delivered at the end of them all and it is loud when it says imperfect is the new perfect.