Capturing the politics and poetics of everyday life....

What if the very act of counting people was never neutral? In today’s datafied democracy, where surveillance is sanitised as governance and numbers masquerade as justice, the call for a caste census comes with both promise and peril. Is it a long-overdue instrument for equity—or a sophisticated weapon in the arsenal of electoral manipulation? The answer, like caste itself, is layered. As governments across India toggle between silence and strategy, the caste census returns as a political flashpoint - no longer just a statistical exercise, but a battleground for the soul of democracy. Nowhere is this more evident than in Kerala, a state that projects itself as a beacon of social justice, yet sidesteps the uncomfortable question: Whose lives are worth counting, and who gets to decide? This blog unpacks how the politics of enumeration has morphed from colonial control to democratic erasure - raising urgent questions about visibility, power, and the future of representation in India. In a ...

We have all grown up with  Indulekha - the heroine of the novel Indulekha - who is   poised, articulate and English educated. She has been hailed as the face of 19th-century Kerala’s reform movement - the shining symbol of educated womanhood and literary modernity. Every book on literary history remembers her; every classroom reveres her. But what if there was another woman from the same era - one who tried to imitate that model, only to be laughed at by the very society she sought to impress? Enter  Parangodikutty -  the hilariously misplaced heroine of  Parangodi Parinayam  (1892).  She demanded toast and butter in a nair tarawad, scoffed at native customs and looked down on indigenous art forms in her quest to appear 'modern'.  But the laughter she provoked was not just about her - it was aimed at  colonial mimicry. Kizhakkeppattu  Ramankutty Menon’s biting satire did not parody a person - it parodied a period, a mindset, a misguided...

What does it mean to be ‘cultured’ in a state celebrated for its progressiveness? Kerala, with its proud legacy of literacy and reform, often wears the label of modernity like a badge. But behind that sheen lies an invisible ledger of do’s and don’ts whispered into the ears of young girls. From the swan-like walk to the art of not laughing too loudly, womanhood in Kerala has long been shaped by scripts written in Victorian England. This blog journeys through novels, manuals and memory to reveal how deep the roots of gendered obedience run - and why feminism in Kerala must first reckon with its own cultural ghosts.  What does it mean to be a ‘cultured’ woman in Kerala today? “Don’t laugh too loudly.” “Sit properly.” “Walk like a swan.” “Don’t talk too much.” “Be graceful.” If you grew up in Kerala, these phrases are likely to be etched into the folds of your memory - offered as advice, correction, or concern. But these everyday admonitions are not innocent; they are the echoes of a ...

On every November 1 st and especially during the celebrations of Onam, Kerala stages itself - not through festivities, but through an image regime. A woman in white-gold kasavu sari, a sumptuous sadya spread on a banana leaf and a stylised green face of a  Kathakali actor -  these are not mere festive markers but curated symbols. They adorn government hoardings, tourism ads, school walls and Instagram feeds. But as cultural theorists remind us, no symbol is apolitical. These images are not merely celebratory icons; they function as mechanisms of cultural selection, circulating within an affective economy that assigns emotional value and legitimacy to particular representations. Rather than reflecting Kerala, they actively regulate who is allowed to represent as authentically Keralite. Through this process, some bodies and identities are folded into the dominant cultural imagination, while others are excluded from its glowing frame, rendered invisible or inauthentic.  T...