A Teashop Scene
(Oru chaayakkada scene)
2023 -Ongoing
When we pay attention to the way women are represented in cinema, a common and startling pattern emerges—public leisure is a privilege almost exclusively granted to men. Teashops (chaayakkadas) in Malayalam films are not just places for drinking tea, they serve as vital hubs for camaraderie, political discourse, and everyday storytelling. Yet, these spaces, so central to Kerala’s social fabric, remain largely inaccessible to women.
Malayalam cinema’s history spanning nearly a century, with over 7,000 films produced since its inception. From the silent era’s Vigathakumaran (1928) to the contemporary digital age, Malayalam films have played a crucial role in reflecting and shaping Kerala’s cultural narratives. Despite their thematic diversity and cinematic evolution, these films have consistently reinforced a male-dominated public sphere, particularly in their portrayal of leisure and everyday social life.
This project examines teashop scenes spanning multiple decades of Malayalam cinema, tracing how films reinforce a male-dominated culture of public leisure. By compiling screenshots from different eras, the research highlights how the absence of women in these everyday public settings reflects and perpetuates a broader cultural reality—one where women's leisure, especially in shared community spaces, is either nonexistent or confined to the domestic sphere.
The project stems from a personal realisation: the culture I was born into limits women's capacity to connect, unwind, and build sisterhood. The repercussions of this exclusion ripple across generations, shaping how women navigate public life and social interactions. A Teashop Scene (Oru Chayakkada Scene) it presents a tea shop full of women reclaiming their right to public space, as a necessity, and without any guilt. The women in the image - Sreeyamma, Omana, Ajitha, Rajamma, Shanta and Thangamma are women in my family in a scene that Malayalam cinema, and perhaps reality itself, has yet to depict. It is staged, but the women in the frame are not fictional, they are real individuals with love, laughter and hope within them.
