Nearly a year ago, a film song composed by Bhoomee premiered on YouTube, winning a lot of love for the music and Sid Sriram’s rendition. Somewhere in that romantic melody is a short passionate kiss between the onscreen actors Krishna Sankar and Durga Krishna. Cyber bullies, hardly dormant when it comes to abusing a young woman online, found a new prey and jumped on with scathing remarks on Durga, her husband and others in the family. A year has gone by and Durga moved onto other films. But when a teaser of the same Malayalam film – Kudukku 2025 -- came out two days ago, the bullies were back. This time, along with Durga, the men in the film and her family also joined the fight against cyber bullying.
Bilahari, the director of Kudukku, was one of the first to put out a post, calling out the bullies, sharing their abusive screenshots against Durga without bothering to blur the names. “Normally, we ignore abusive comments against a film or an artist. Even if you try to fight it, it may be seen as an attempt to create a controversy around the film to promote it. But after the teaser came out and Durga and her husband were subjected to more cyber bullying, she made a call to some of us in the evening. She said that she has been fighting this for a year, and the rest of us had not spoken up. She asked what if her husband, who has been supportive so far, is suddenly affected by it, how much could he ignore. We felt bad that we hadn’t reacted so far,” Bilahari tells TNM.
With a disclaimer that he was not posting for creating a controversy or promoting his film, Bilahari clearly took a stand against the bullies, saying that he knew this wouldn’t stop the bullying, but at least he would have the comfort of knowing he stood with his abused colleague. The bullying comments ranged from ‘smelling a divorce here’ to ‘if she doesn’t have enough chances in films, not just lip lock she will do much more’. Bilahari and Durga said that quite a lot of comments were aimed at her husband, Arjun Ravindran, some of the vilest saying “he made a living by selling his wife”.
“If someone does not like a movie I did, my character or my acting, they have every right to criticise it. But I have given no one the right to meddle in my personal life, tell me what films or characters I should or should not do,” Durga tells TNM.
Last year, when the controversy first broke out over the song in Kudukku, Durga had put out an Instagram video, questioning the double standards of those bullying her, for they didn’t seem to have any problem with the man in the song. There were two people in that scene, she said, but only she and her family had been criticised and bullied online. There was no word about Krishna Sankar or his choice of acting in the scene.
“In Kudukku, the lip lock was with Krishna Sankar. In another film called Udal, I had an intimate scene with Dhyan Sreenivasan. But you will never see anything against either of these actors. It is always the woman that gets it. If you are married, derogatory comments will be made about your husband, otherwise it will be made against your parents. I keep quiet when it is just me they comment about. But when they drag my family into it, I can’t do that,” Durga says.
In Kudukku and in Udal, she has done a lot more than the short intimate scenes that got so much attention. In addition to emotional scenes, her well-prepared fight scenes resulted in injuries to her. “But none of these got shared or talked about like the intimate scenes. It simply shows their sexual frustration,” she says.
Watch: Teaser of Kudukku 2025
Durga is very clear about her choices and speaks with an admirable certainty that none of the bullying would affect her career decisions. “I am not fighting for my sake alone, but for all the women out there. There would be women actors who don’t take up such roles because they don’t want to go through the kind of bullying I did. They may not have a supportive family like I do. But I am human and when they hurt my dear ones, I am hurt too. They are now asking mean things of my husband and he is giving them apt replies, but what if one day it all becomes too much for him and he asks me to make a choice – between my career and the life with him?” Durga asks.
Her husband Arjun too posted a story giving an on-your-face reply to the bullies. “I only have a lot of 'pucham' (scorn) for all the hypocrites and kulasthrees (so called norms-abiding women) who questioned my manhood in the name of a mere lip lock. Since my wife and I work in the cinema field, and Durga has the responsibility as an artist towards her characters, and since we have the common sense to understand the difference between cinema and life, I am doing this," he wrote on an Instagram story. He added that he is happy to inform everyone that he and his family are least affected by any of this and will continue to support Durga in doing the good characters she likes to.
Arjun's Instagram story
Krishna Sankar, Durga’s co actor in the Kudukku song, also posted on Facebook in support of her. Writing that while Durga and her family were facing all this bullying, he and his family were happily spending time at home, because he had been spared all the attack. Understanding the privileges he has as a male, Krishna writes that when it comes to cinema, he, as an artist, would choose good stories regardless of the lip locks or intimate scenes they contain. But when people take such a hostile attitude towards a woman actor who makes a similar choice, she may be forced to back out and miss working on a dream project, Krishna wrote.
Durga is very happy that her male colleagues and husband spoke up for her, she says. “When I keep explaining my choices, they see it as justification. But it makes a difference when the men who take the same position as me speak out. It is not that I want Krishna Sankar or his family to go through the kind of experience I did. On the other hand, people who show respect and admiration towards men unafraid of doing intimate scenes, should be able to show the same attitude towards women actors,” she says.