Two months after its theatrical release, Hindi film Param Sundari is once again in the spotlight with its OTT release last week. The same reasons that prompted much criticism after the film’s theatrical debut – namely, the stereotypical portrayal of Malayalis – have once again sparked a wave of memes and trolls on the internet.
The film tells a north-south love story, with Param, from the Hindi speaking belt, travelling to Kerala in search of his love interest, as predicted by an app. Sidharth Malhotra plays Param, and Janhvi Kapoor plays the Malayali woman he comes in quest of: Thekkepaattu Sundari. However, Janhvi’s broken Malayalam, along with the portrayal of Sundari and Kerala through familiar stereotypes — including women dressed in Mohiniyattam costumes with jasmine flowers in their hair, and men on coconut trees and drinking toddy (even while driving) — drew widespread criticism.
Beyond the mocking of the massacred Malayalam in Sundari’s accented dialogue, fresh attention has also fallen on the Malayalis who have acted in the film. Among them, senior actor and scriptwriter Renji Panicker features in several viral video clips from the film that highlight his attempts to ‘translate’ Sundari’s broken Malayalam, often by repeating her lines in his responses.
For instance, when Sundari walks into a kalaripayattu practice and says in an attempt at Malayalam: “Instead of shouting at everyone, call Venu, he will fix everything,” Renji Panicker’s reply sounds like an explainer: “Yes, you are all telling me to call Venu and that he will come and fix everything.” In another scene, Sundari says, again in broken Malayalam: “You didn’t tell me Venu was coming,” to which Renji replies, “Meaning I did not tell you about Venu’s coming, but Venu asked me not to, hahaha”.
At a recent promotional event for another film, Renji Panicker responded to a question about the criticism of Param Sundari’s stereotyping Malayalis. He said that the film’s target audience was not Malayalis, and the north Indian makers had tried to create a character from another linguistic background with their limited resources and understanding. “If we try to speak Hindi, it will sound funny to them too,” he said, adding that Param Sundari was meant to be an out-and-out fun film, and the makers had no intention of portraying Malayalis in a bad light.
Apart from Renji Panicker, Malayali actors such as Anand Manmadhan, Tanvi Ram, and Gopika also act in Param Sundari.
“I got the role through a casting agency, for which I gave an online audition. This is my first non-Malayalam film and I was interested to know what it was like to work in a different language. I learned a lot about their working pattern and how they are different from the way Malayalam films are made. It was shot in Alappuzha and Changanassery in Kerala as well as in Mumbai,” Anand tells TNM.
He plays a character called Kennedy who has a crush on Sundari. Anand says he was not altogether surprised by the reaction of Malayalis. “But my experience of working in the film was good. We used to offer suggestions about the diction sometimes, and they were welcoming of it.”
Gopika plays a nurse named Jincy in the film, and Tanvi plays a character named Parvathy.
Watch this episode of Let Me Explain, where Pooja Prasanna explains "what Bollywood thinks of the south":
