Flavors of Vengeance: Marginality, Identity, and Agency in Biryani
(On the thematic concerns of Sajin Babu’s new film,
following his breakthrough debut Asthamayam Vare)
Introduction
Sajin Babu has established himself as a filmmaker deeply
invested in the interrogation of social norms and human psychology. Following
his acclaimed debut Asthamayam Vare, his new film Biryani
continues this trajectory, exploring the intersections of gender, power, and
marginalization. Through the story of Khadija, a Muslim woman navigating a
world rife with misogyny, patriarchy, and communal prejudice, Babu pushes
familiar cinematic tropes into unsettling and morally complex terrain. The film
blends narrative realism with symbolic excess, demanding that viewers confront
ethical, social, and existential dilemmas rather than offering easy
resolutions.
The Extraordinary in the Ultra-ordinary
A Muslim woman. Born into an impoverished family, with
little to no education. Haunted by the absence of a father lost at sea and the
instability of a mentally unwell mother. Trapped in a marriage to a much older
man from a conservative, financially secure household. Situated within a social
milieu where women are reduced to mere instruments of sex. Beyond this, there
looms the arrogance of men who interpret even the slightest assertion of female
sexual identity as proof of incomplete FGM. Her mother-in-law, seeing her as an
interloper who threatens her authority, seizes the first opportunity to enforce
the triple talaq oath, severing even the bond between mother and child.
Most of these narrative ingredients—except for female
genital mutilation—have long been employed in Malayalam cinema, from Kuttikkupayam
to Zubaida. Even when layered with post-9/11 Islamophobia and the
rhetoric of the war on terror, they no longer feel novel. But in Biryani,
these familiar elements begin to chart unfamiliar trajectories.
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