Mahesh Narayanan Director’s Cut: On being labelled Islamophobic, Malik, Take Off and his Hindi debut-Entertainment News , Firstpost

It’s the final quarter of the year, a time for stock-taking. No cinematic trend in India in 2021 has rivalled the manner in which Malayalam cinema swept past language barriers and ‘national’ media apathy to grab eyeballs across the country. Mahesh Narayanan has been a moving force behind this trend and a beneficiary. His C U Soon and Malik have made waves during the pandemic, with Malik being one of 2021’s most talked about films. He is now juggling multiple directorial ventures, including his first in Tamil and Hindi.

The going has not been uniformly smooth though, with a section of Kerala’s audience accusing Malik of Islamophobia. In an interview spanning several hours, the award-winning editor-writer-director spoke to me about this allegation that has dogged him since Take Off (2017), his politics and his filmmaking sensibilities. Excerpts:

Has the storm in Kerala after Malik’s release settled down?

I think so. Differing viewpoints on cinema are inevitable anyway. But now people have started checking out the film’s cinematic moments.

Some Kerala viewers consider you Islamophobic. How do you react to that?

Whichever way you treat a film, there will always be different interpretations. For example, when Raheemun Aleemun from Malik’s soundtrack came out, some people criticised it because it uses different names of the Prophet – they felt it should not have been used as a song. But later even people from the Middle East started recreating it, stating that it has to be seen.

It’s okay for people to have their own take. And it’s their right to criticise. Islamophobia is prevalent in today’s India so people are bound to be suspicious.

I only disagree with those who call Malik a dishonest film. Fiction is anyway a take. You can say an article is dishonest. How can a fictional film be dishonest?

Do you still maintain that Malik is not based on the Beemapally shooting of 2009 in which six Muslims were killed? 

I am inspired by certain events, but it’s not only about Beemapally. Marad is also in the film, so are other communal incidents from coastal Kerala, so is Thoothukudi. However, largely because of the terrain I explore, people relate Ramadapally and Edavathura in the film to these places (the neighbouring localities of Beemapally and Cheriyathura in Thiruvananthapuram) that are similar to them.

But I’m not recording history. Malik is fiction. Many people are accusing me of making a propaganda film to rewrite history. I can’t rewrite history since I’m not portraying real characters with real names. This film is only inspired.

I’m just happy that because of it, people are revisiting certain chapters in Kerala’s history that many would have preferred us to forget or term as communal riots. Youngsters who didn’t know of Beemapally are reading about it.

When I started writing the first draft, friends in the media got to know what I’m working on and asked: do you really want to get into this subject?

Why?

You see, even the media are not inclined to report such incidents. Not only Beemapally, but certain other incidents also. Maybe compromise deals happened between those affected and those responsible. I feel the guilty are always protected.

I live in Kovalam, which is near Vizhinjam. If you are comparing Malik with Beemapally… I’ve also mentioned the upcoming harbour project commissioned to a corporate agency in the film, because I’ve been seeing how land has been acquired since it was sanctioned.

People are forced to move out of certain places. Irrespective of which government is in power, the system takes advantage of even natural calamities like the tsunami and Cyclone Ockhi.

The harbour is with a giant corporate group. I have seen this corporate run ambulances in the region giving free medical check-ups.

And slowly, that area is being taken away, people are asked to move out, they are given houses in concrete buildings that serve no purpose for them since these are people who survive on the sea. It’s a huge wider scenario and I’m always connecting things to a wider scenario.

A riot happens but we don’t know the reason. We are told it’s a communal riot, but it is not, and the public will never understand that it’s state-orchestrated. At one stage we will see a situation close to a genocide. Then there will be an exodus because people feel unsafe there.

I have seen communal harmony being broken, barricades coming up, people being kept in two regions saying, “Now you people don’t go there.” All this has affected me.

I haven’t understood your concern about the ambulances.

These ambulances create an impression that they are helping people but I’m suspicious whether they are being run to gain people’s trust. These are just my doubts and fears.

Is it medical surveillance? Kerala has a strong health sector. The government is strong in the health sector and reaches everywhere. So when ambulances give free blood tests, medical camps etc in an area and it’s not from the government or an NGO, I’ll be suspicious.

The people of this region are also suspicious of anyone coming from outside the delta. Even if I go location hunting for a shoot, people will come and ask, “Why have you come here?” I will say I’ve come to check a location. Their first question is: “Are you looking for a location for some corporate?” They think any outsider is looking for land.

There are two sides to this. Many say, lots of people will get jobs and a means to make money. However, no one knows what happens to those who are displaced.

In such a place, efforts are made to get people out. First it will be normal talk. It gradually becomes threatening. If that does not work, there will be an incident that will be tagged with another kind of label. This is similar to many riots that have happened in India.

In many areas in this coastal region, people have had to leave at different times. Why? A place suddenly gets a reputation as being unfit for human living. Why? And if a resistance arises among people, what will happen? That is all I wondered to make a fictional feature film.

But would you specifically address the accusation of Islamophobia?

If speaking about extremism and political Islam gets me this criticism, I am ready for it. This is equivalent to criticising RSS.

Everyone says the problem is that I showed a green flag. They concluded that it’s the Muslim League’s flag. But a green flag does not belong only to the Muslim League. INL too has a green flag. It cannot be seen as a specific party’s flag.

(Note: the Indian Union Muslim League is a coalition partner in the Congress-led United Democratic Front in Kerala. INL, the Indian National League, is a minor member of the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front currently in government in Kerala.)

Besides, I am also telling the story of a friendship. And the film is set in 2018. Many people say: you have changed history. What comes first in history? The year of the event, right? So when you look at 2018, won’t you understand who was ruling then?

I have given all the characters a grayness. No character is filled with virtue or vice, you see their circumstances. But the fact that the politician in this film is a Muslim is the reason why I’m facing these accusations.

Yes, there’s criticism because the corrupt politician Abu (Dileesh Pothan) is Muslim.

If I put a Christian or Hindu in that place, I would have been told the exact opposite.

It’s like MT Sir (MT Vasudevan Nair) said: it would not be possible to make (the 1973 film) Nirmalyam today. In Nirmalyam, the man Narayani sleeps with due to her financial desperation is Muslim. Today the argument would be: why did you portray a Muslim like that?

Otherwise, we should show everyone as neutral. Santhosh Echikkanam had a similar problem after he wrote Biriyani. It’s a nice story but a lot of people criticised it because the premise is that the biryani not eaten by guests at a Muslim wedding is buried – meaning, it is wasted. So in his next story, he named the characters A, B, C, D. (He laughs)

The same thing happened to my friend Hareesh, the writer of Meesha. Mathrubhumi stopped publishing it, so DC did.

Can we stop making films fearing this intolerance? It is everywhere.

You equated your criticism of extremism in Islam with criticism of RSS. All religious extremism is condemnable, but is there an equivalence? RSS comes from India’s majority community and is entirely the establishment in India now. Muslims, however, are a minority, and unlike in Kerala, a beleaguered minority across the rest of India.

What you say is right. They are an oppressed community. All I’m addressing in Malik is: what would the situation be if a resistance was born among them?

In the film, Ahammadali Sulaiman (Fahadh Faasil) tells Abu, “We used to fast together and you have stabbed us in the back.” Earlier, (his wife) Roseline (Nimisha Sajayan) accuses Abu of acting in his own interests in the matter of the harbour project and he replies that if they oppose a government project, then as a minister he will have to participate in it. Meaning, he is not one of them. No one is addressing that, they are just addressing the religion.

Many people say I’m showing a “good Muslim” and “bad Muslim”. What I’m saying is, ultimately “good human”, “bad human”. And how do problems arise between friends? How have people in all eras used religion to create divisions? Then they themselves say they are trying to resolve the discord, but divisions keep deepening and people get so embroiled in them that they are ultimately destroyed.

That’s why I told you what MT Sir said. As filmmakers, artists, writers, we should be able to tell stories about what we see around us.

So why did you place the current happenings in the film in 2018?

None of those who are connecting Malik to Beemapally emphasise the line spoken by Joju George’s character in the end. He says, “The Ramadapally firing was created by the police. There was no animosity between the communities there. It was orchestrated by the police with the support of the government that was in power at the time.” If I’m trying to support someone, why should I include that line?

In my review I said Malik is a direct criticism of Kerala’s present ruling party because anyone who feels the film was inspired by Beemapally knows they were in power back then too. I wrote that the only safety net you kept for yourself was changing the year of the police firing in your story from 2009 to 2004. This change upset some people though.

(Note: in 2004, UDF was in government in Kerala, whereas the state’s present ruling coalition, LDF, was the one in government in 2009, the year of the real-life Beemapally shooting.)

Why did you shift the date?

Because I wanted to include the (2004) tsunami in Malik, because the stories of displacement after the tsunami are necessary for this film. I can’t change the year in which a natural calamity occurred. Besides, in the current situation in which the film is taking place, everyone knows who is the government that is fighting for the harbour.

If people are talking about the Beemapally firing, there have been two government changes after that – first UDF, then LDF returned twice. When UDF came to power, the judicial commission report was there. Why did they not find a solution?

The question is: who gains from the evictions, the firing, by portraying what happened as a riot? Nobody discusses this publicly.

You thank Pinarayi Vijayan in the acknowledgements. Some people connect that to the date of the firing being shifted from 2009 to 2004 in the film.

The thank you was because we got permission to shoot inside the secretariat, a location not usually given for shoots. This is not the first time a CM has been thanked in a Malayalam film. In my own film Take Off, we thanked (Congress’) Oommen Chandy because I got permission to shoot in several government offices. Thanks cards come from the production side anyway.

You know why they are criticising me? Because I’m an SFI (Students’ Federation of India) person, and I’ve worked with Kairali channel. So that means I’m close to CPM.

I am a Left supporter, I say that wherever I go, but that doesn’t mean I support everything they do. If I did, why would I make such a film and include the last line?

Much of the criticism of Malik is due to speculation that it’s about Beemapally. You could have avoided that if you had made it generic by setting it among Hindus and Muslims, since Hindus are the majority community and Muslims the second largest. Why set it among Muslims and Christians, that too in closely neighbouring localities, thus giving the setting a close resemblance to Beemapally and Cheriyathura?

Firstly, I wanted to discuss two minority, marginalised communities. Hindus are privileged, not marginalised. Second, in any coastal area in Kerala, you will find Christian and Muslim fisherfolk.

I checked the statistics and found that Kerala fisherfolk are mostly Christians followed by Hindus, Muslims are only next.

I don’t know. In Trivandrum, in the area I’m living in near Kovalam, this is the reality.

Okay, so you’re not talking about fisherfolk in the entire state?

I don’t understand this – you make a film and there is so much questioning. It is like we have committed a crime.

I didn’t say that.

(Sounding upset) No, it’s just that you are bringing in statistical analysis and this and that. But I observe people around my home and that’s how I conceptualise cinema.

I’m saying respectfully, I respect your reviews a lot – all around me when I was growing up, these are the people I’ve seen.

You understand, Mahesh, I’m only pointing out a factual error because you said this is the case in every coastal area in Kerala.

(He is calm by now) I wouldn’t say every coastal area.

Okay. When Sulaiman tells Roseline he wants their children to be Muslim, her unquestioning acquiescence seems out of character for this feisty, fiery woman.

He asks her permission. He doesn’t impose his will on her in a typical fashion. If Roseline had denied permission, the scene might have been different, but she does not.

That is what I don’t understand. She resists a head covering but does not even ask: “Why your religion, not mine for the children?”

Because Roseline is non-religious. Maybe it’s because of her education. She’s the only one from there who has been to college.

But she gives him a commitment that the children can be brought up as Muslim, then stays silent when her brother gives the baby a Christian name; she unprotestingly participates in the baptism, but when her husband barges into the ceremony, she follows him out. She was independent earlier, but here she keeps following the men around.

No no. Roseline doesn’t believe in religious institutions. And keep in mind, this is a lower middle class, very rural mindset. When the baby is born, her husband is in jail and she does not think he will get bail. She needs her family’s support, a house to live in. So when they conduct the baptism, she just stands there, that’s all.

Sulaiman is romanticised in the film and built up as a far more larger-than-life character than his friend David (Vinay Forrt).

Sulaiman is not a particular individual. He is a collective voice. But it is likely that in the nature of commercial cinema… Let me speak the truth, I prefer not to have action sequences, songs and so on, but when a film crosses a Rs 25 crore budget, its theatrical collections have to cross Rs 30 crore. When you think of this, we start doing such things. Count this as the limitation of a filmmaker who took up a film with a slightly high budget.

Another observation: after the first murder, Sulaiman is not shown committing violence. When he commissions acts of violence, others commit the violence…

(He cuts in) These are collective decisions, not his decisions.

This actually supports the point I want to make, which is that each time David’s actions lead to violence, you show him present at those places, but after the first killing, you pointedly separate Sulaiman from violence that occurs due to his actions or decisions.

David is being used as a tool by the system to create trouble. He is just reacting to what is being shared with him. But he’s not actually throwing stones at buses. He even tells the police not to shoot in that scene. And he does not actually kill the person at the hotel.

I understand this. I’m saying, when David’s actions lead to violence, you show a direct link between him and the violence; not so with Sulaiman. In fact, you’re saying the acts of violence I assumed were commissioned by Sulaiman were actually collective decisions.

Can you point out an act?

The police person being shot, the car running over a government official… You show them happening, you don’t show the specific person who does these things.

Can Sulaiman go and do such things when his son is lying dead? It’s a mourning situation. (He laughs) If I’d shown him going there, witnessing what’s being done, that would be a typical hero, coming in a car, seeing that it has been done, okay, fine, I’ve seen it, I’m going…isn’t that old-style cinema?

I’m not saying he should necessarily be there physically. I’m saying you create a distance between Sulaiman and the violence in the film. Was this part of your effort to make viewers like him because ultimately, though David is important, Sulaiman is your hero?

I don’t think so. David is confused from the beginning. In the scene in which the school’s first stone is being laid, when Abu tries to create trouble by saying the school is the mosque’s property and Moosakka (Salim Kumar) counters him because he realises what Abu is up to, you can see a change in David. Earlier too he says, “Because of your people, our people can’t live anymore,” and someone asks, “Since when did ‘yours’ and ‘ours’ start?” There is a communalism lying dormant and deeply embedded in him. It’s there in some people. We ourselves know so many highly educated people in the new generation who only indulge in communal talk in our WhatsApp groups. This is a reflection of our society. In such a situation, it’s easy for the police to make David a tool.

He is told to go to a place and create a ruckus. He does that, but he does not support the crime that follows. And he carries the guilt of the realisation that all the problems started because he created that ruckus when asked to.

Sulaiman is different. He takes more daring decisions. He commits that first murder because someone comes to a locality, kills 10-15 children, and no one speaks for these people. This is what we’re saying from the start. They put garbage in front of the Secretariat in protest because the system is not bothered about them – the idea to do this comes from these people themselves, and because of that, Sulaiman is more spontaneous. He takes daring decisions without considering the consequences.

When guns come into their hands, he tells them to bury the guns. I still do not believe they were dug up under Sulaiman’s command. That was a collective decision.

Collective decision meaning, for so long, when so many people have been killed, should there not be a resistance? It’s a collective resistance.

But isn’t this the romanticisation I’m talking about? Though crimes are committed, you make Sulaiman a likeable person throughout, reliable, hero-like…

Maybe it’s because he stands up for society.

Maybe what you’re saying emerges because sometimes there is a need for a person to represent the collective voice. Sulaiman is made to do that in Malik.

It’s ironic that you’re being accused of Islamophobia whereas I’m questioning you for presenting Sulaiman as a hero-like Nice Guy and distancing him from his actions.

The talk that I am Islamophobic is a fallout of the representation of a Malayali in ISIS in Take Off. Then I spoke in a discussion on the topic, “Why are people going from a particular place being easily radicalised?” Some people got offended by some words I used, and ever since, they see me as anti-Islam.

But I’m saying, the ideology behind the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid issue, the Bajrang Dal, RSS is the same as the ideology behind extremist Islam. I’m not even criticising this, I’m representing this. The flag of the Islamic State says “Mohammed is the messenger of god”. That flag is in the public domain. I cannot change this in my depiction. Then they objected to a scene in Take Off in which an ISIS member asks someone to recite the Quran’s verses to test their knowledge of Islam. But I took this from an incident that actually occurred in Bangladesh.

So if someone sees me as Islamophobic because I criticise extreme Islam or political Islam, then I am Islamophobic, I could be – let them see me that way.

This does not mean I’m speaking with an RSS or BJP agenda. Never in my life have I done that. I’m not Right. In a way I am Left.

Were you careful while portraying Sulaiman because you were accused of Islamophobia after Take Off?

But Malik is not about Sulaiman. It is about an entire minority community in Kerala. It is about marginalised people.

Till date, most media in Kerala have not had the courage to discuss the reason behind the Beemapally firing, why a communal riot was created, some people were forced to flee, some relocated and a project is running there. Those who read this film as an account of Beemapally only want to say that it’s Islamophobia and it has portrayed the victim as the predator. There is hardly any coverage of the incident itself. Look up “Beemapally firing” online – after two threads you will get Malik. Because there are only that many references to the incident in the media. Many people want to keep it buried. Not just Beemapally, but the harbour project, Ring Road project, every project. I never say we don’t need development. But what’s the point of development that comes from displacing people?

Are you capable of making a light-hearted romance or comedy, far removed from the heavy subjects you’ve picked so far?

(He laughs) I’ve been trying, Anna. Seriously. I sat down to write a love story, but it turned into C U Soon. As an artist, I need to explore everything. But I seem to be affected by and imbibing the things around me. C U Soon emerged from a video I saw while making Take Off. It got clubbed with the love story. What can I do?

You have announced a Hindi film.

Yes, Phantom Hospital is based on research by the journalist Josy Joseph and produced by Priti Shahani (co-producer of Talvar, Raazi, Badhaai Ho).

Why is it in Hindi, not Malayalam?

Only because it is set in north India and Hindi is the language of the film’s milieu.

Several people wanted me to direct a Hindi remake of Malik but I didn’t want to do that because I made it in the context of the coastal terrain in a Malayalam-speaking community. Another director can do their take in a different space, I can’t.

It’s not that I have any fantasy of going to Bollywood. Definitely my mindset is always inclined towards the south, but this subject is relevant, well researched by Josy, and it’s about a scam in north India so I had to stick to that geography. Whatever be the language, I want to do original content, and here I’m also getting to write Phantom Hospital.

I ask because you and Aashiq Abu are making Hindi films, and as a Malayalam film follower I fear that as Malayalam cinema gains more nationwide traction, Malayalam filmmakers will start trying to make Hindi films, assuming that will widen their audience, or they will modify their content, thus diluting the very rootedness in Malayali culture that gives their films the universality that is drawing a pan-India audience in the first place. How will you guard against that?

This is not the first time I have been asked to do a Hindi film. I have rejected projects that were not suited to my way of filmmaking nor close to my heart. I often ask myself: does this story have to be told? The answer, in this case, is, yes, and it has to be told in this manner, set in this environment. But whether I make a film in Hindi, Tamil or any other language, I won’t lose my filmmaking sensibility or change my way of functioning.

Also, there’s a certain freedom we get while making Malayalam cinema – I want that freedom. I’m getting that with Priti and that’s what I’m happy with.

For Anna M.M. Vetticad’s reviews of Malik, C U Soon and Take Off, click here, here and here.

Anna M.M. Vetticad is an award-winning journalist and author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. She specialises in the intersection of cinema with feminist and other socio-political concerns. Twitter: @annavetticad, Instagram: @annammvetticad