The Kerala Story: A spine-chilling true story

Statuary warning: This film is not for weak-hearted people. You need courage to watch this film because once you see this film, you’ll surely not be able to sleep peacefully for weeks.

Based on a true incident, The Kerala Story is a story of girls who are framed, manipulated and converted to accept Islam and eventually forced to join the terrorist organization, ISIS. This film talks about 3 girls, whose life went through hell, but this film also opens up about 32,000 girls who suffered this trauma in real life. It feels saddened and hurtful to have such a huge number from Kerala which is a cent percent literate state.

The film looks unfiltered & raw in showing facts as it is without tampering the originality.

Adah Sharma was successful in portraying the innocence of Shalini Unnikrishnan, a young girl from Kerala, who had dreams of becoming a nurse and serve the country. From sacrificing her own religion for love to coming out brave from the trap, she did justice to the character.

I must applaud everyone who played their role with such intensity that when you leave the theatre, you end up hating the actors. That’s only because they played the character so well. Veteran actor Devadharshini, who played Shalini’s mother was brilliant in her role.

Though there were some scenes which looked too staged. The scene where Shalini asks Rameez about pre-marital sex being a sin in Islam. The entire scene looks forced and doesn’t look well-executed.

The film will leave you questioning the fact that, how can someone be so deeply manipulated to get converted to Muslim and follow Islam that they are ready to disown their own parents. In one of the scenes, Geetanjali, played by Siddhi Idnani spits on her dying father in the hospital. The trauma the parents faced to see their child getting brutally raped, tortured, physically, mentally, sexually and emotionally abused, is not a very pleasant sight.

It’s okay if you don’t follow any religion, but is definitely not okay to get carried away and manipulated by other religions blindly. Lastly, on a personal note, I would like to conclude by saying, love your religion, but don’t disrespect other religions.

Be proud of what you are. I take pride in calling myself a Hindi, A Tamilian, A Brahmin. And so should every individual take pride in addressing their identity.  

I thank Sudipto Sen for giving this film and handling such a sensitive topic with utmost care and dignity. I would highly recommend everyone to watch the film. It’s streaming on Zee5.