Cinema, Karam, Kapi

In a hard-hitting dialogue, one of the characters in the movie says outside the Court premises, “ People come to Courts assuming the guilty would be punished; little do they know that coming to the Court itself is a punishment ”.  Very strong words there by Director RJ Balaji, whose much awaited film  Karuppu  released in theatres on 15 May 2026, a few days after Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay took oath. The movie was ready for release several months ago and was mired in various controversies.   The Director has taken the Indian legal system head-on, showcasing the unholy nexus of certain lawyers and judges outside the Courtroom and Chambers, much to the chagrin of the stakeholders. He could have also done well with including recent real life instances, such as stashes of cash that was found at a Supreme Court Judge’s home in the national capital. Nevertheless, glad that someone had the guts to showcase the glut in the system. Kudos to his bravery. The fi...

As much as I would like that the entire hyped-up storyline of the much touted propaganda film The Kerala Story 2: Goes Beyond is at least partly fictional, the reality seems to be otherwise.  This is purely based on anecdotal evidence as seen from several cases that gets the much-needed media attention from time to time. Anecdotes corroborate with fiction. And one could connect the dots backwards, perhaps.  Unlike the prequel, the second edition of the film is not entirely based out of Kerala, rather shows the plight of Hindu religion girls across the Hindi-belt of India, at Madhya Pradesh & Rajasthan. Surekha Nair (Ulka Gupta) is the only child and is brought up in a secular environment by her progressive Malayalee parents. She informs them one day about “her decision" to move to Delhi to live-in with Salim (Sumit Gahlawat), a forward-thinking journalist, much to their chagrin. The typical father’s love doesn’t hold her wishes back and she moves on to another city, eve...