Actress Pavithra Menon slams Janhvi Kapoor’s Param Sundari for stereotypical portrayal of Malayalis
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Thiruvananthapuram: The trailer of Sidharth Malhotra and Janhvi Kapoor’s upcoming romantic drama Param Sundari has drawn criticism over cultural representation. Malayalam actress and singer Pavithra Menon accused the makers of misrepresenting Malayalis in Hindi cinema and questioned the decision to cast non-Malayali actors in such roles.
In an Instagram video posted on Thursday, August 14, Pavithra reacted to a scene where Janhvi’s character, Sundari, introduces herself in heavily accented Hindi as “Main Thekkapatil Damodaran Sundaram Pillai Kerala se.” She questioned, “What’s the problem in hiring a proper Malayali actor? Are we less talented?”
Switching between Hindi and Malayalam, Pavithra said such portrayals do not reflect reality in Kerala. She compared it to exaggerated depictions of Punjabis in Malayalam films of the 1990s and added, “It’s 2025. Everybody knows how a Malayali talks. We don’t just wear jasmine flowers and do Mohiniyattam everywhere.”
Clarifying that she had no personal criticism of Janhvi Kapoor, Pavithra said her concern was with authentic representation. The post received support from many followers, though some accused her of being ‘jealous’. She later deleted the video.
Param Sundari, directed by Tushar Jalota, is a cross-cultural love story featuring Sidharth as a North Indian man and Janhvi as a Malayali woman. The film is scheduled for release on August 29.
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Indigo flights chaos: SCR to run special trains to clear passenger rush
Hyderabad (PTI): The South Central Railway on Saturday announced that it would run four special trains to manage the surge in passengers resulting from the large-scale cancellation of IndiGo flights here.
The move comes as flyers face significant disruption and long queues at the airport due to the cancellation.
A press release from the SCR said it is running the special trains to clear the extra rush of passengers to Chennai, Mumbai and Shalimar (Kolkata) from Hyderabad today.
Meanwhile, as many as 43 outbound Indigo flights were cancelled from here on Saturday, Rajiv Gandhi International Airport sources said.
Similarly, 26 incoming flights are also likely to be cancelled during the day, they said.
The flight cancellations drew ire from passengers, who thronged the IndiGo counters at the airport demanding to know the exact situation.
“This is utter nonsense! Digiyatra done, message received that departure has been rescheduled ahead of the scheduled departure and now upon arriving at Hyderabad airport coming to know at the security checkpoint that Indigo flight is cancelled,” Tarun Singha, former Ministry of Defence spokesperson said in a post on X.
“But the thing is if you don’t shout they do nothing. Example at Hyderabad Airport, there was no staff no flight information for an hour. Then a fellow passenger started shouting on mic and an Indigo staff appeared finally,” a netizen said in a post.
On Friday, when IndiGo cancelled over 1,000 flights from across airports, its CEO Pieter Elbers apologised in a video message for the major inconvenience caused to passengers due to the disruptions.
In the one-way video communication, Elbers also said that the airline was expecting fewer than 1,000 flights on Saturday.
