Precarious Childhoods in Malayalam Films: Negotiating Precarity and Posthumanism in Ottaal and Veyilmarangal

Abstract

This article considers two Malayalam films, each of which uses ‘the child’ to reflect on ‘precarious childhood’. Ottaal (2014, Dir. Jayaraj) and Veyilmarangal (2019, Dir. Bijukumar Damodaran) present the ontological relationality of their child characters within their context and the political and social realities of the people in Kerala. The ecological disasters, economic catastrophes, and multilayered forms of social abjection push the children out of human primacy, predominantly through their birth and existence as ‘nameless’ Dalits. The child characters, who contrast with the adults, negotiate a space for themselves amidst the question of belongingness through their relation with animals and the environment around them during the phase(s) of displacement. Borrowing Haraway’s concept of ‘companion species’, we expound on their assemblage with the environment through which they are able to survive the complex realities of daily life. Furthermore, the children are singularly and effectively extensions of animal personhood in their inability to determine the terms of their existence. In response to the larger question of precarity and childhood in the context of Kerala, this paper explores how these Malayalam films, by realistically portraying the idea that human primacy is oblivious to its precariousness, address the ecological predicament and the interconnectedness of all living things, emphasizing values of cohabitation and mutual care, which are central themes in posthumanist thought.

1. Introduction

The images of Kerala disseminated in popular media represent serene backwaters, houseboats, pristine beaches, endless paddy fields, and peaceful villages that impress viewers with the exotic charms of Kerala and appeal to the promotion of tourism as a source of income through foreign exchange and employment via a reviving of the local markets (Sreekumar and Parayil 2002). Such popular representations are extensively problematic, as idealistic spaces seemingly untouched by ecological disasters and economic uncertainties fail to substantiate real-time events, like the massive deluge and resultant landslides of 2018 across Kerala due to torrential rain. The global attention garnered by this event has channeled discourses with respect to its impact on populations that live under the threat of such deluges every monsoon (see Lal et al. 2020; Varughese and Mathew 2023). While changing governments insist on the urgency of developing infrastructure, citing its significance to the economy, people inhabiting these disaster-prone regions are vulnerable, and often governmental aid does not assist in redeeming them from precariousness. According to Butler, precarity “designates that politically induced condition in which certain populations suffer from failing social and economic networks of support” and they “are at heightened risk of disease, poverty, starvation, displacement, and of exposure to violence without protection” (Butler 2009, p. ii). Although increased anthropogenic activities and neoliberal markets have put the whole of human and non-human worlds in precarious situations, those who are immediately and more directly affected are seldom the reason for such natural/human-made disasters.

This article examines the precarious childhoods of children living in extremely volatile conditions who encounter the impacts of modernization, ecological disasters, economic catastrophes, and multilayered forms of social abjection. Focusing on their subhuman existence and interactions with non-human companion species, the article considers how their precarious subjectivities shape their posthuman existence. For this, the study considers two Malayalam films: Ottaal (Jayaraj 2014) and Veyilmarangal (Damodaran 2019, also known as Dr. Biju). Both use child characters to reflect on ‘precarious childhoods’ in the context of migration and displacement, resulting in loss of agency, threat to existence, loss of childhood, and experience(s) of injustice and ostracization. While dealing with children as a subject of posthuman inquiry, it is critical to respond to subjectivities and social and economic vulnerabilities; this will ensure that posthumanism is able to extend as critical thought and contribute to establishing a more inclusive and sustainable future.

Precarious childhoods in Kerala often emanate from family instability (Damodaran and Paul 2018; Sivadas et al. 2023), sexual exploitation (Damodaran and Paul 2018), trafficking (Khan 2016), poverty (Jayalakshmi and Kannan 2022), class hegemony (Varghese 2024), and physical and psychological abuse (Damodaran and Paul 2018; Kumar et al. 2019). Kerala’s reported crimes against children have shown a fluctuating but generally increasing trend from 2016 to 2024, indicating a persistent and evolving challenge to child protection in the state (Kerala Police n.d.). The Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (KeSCPCR) was established in 2013 to safeguard children’s rights and welfare by aligning state laws and policies with the principles of the Indian Constitution and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. A Child Welfare Committee is also constituted in each district of Kerala under the Juvenile Justice Act of 2015 to cater to the protection, care, and development of children. Although such frameworks focused on developing welfare policies for children under national and international mandates, the functioning of these institutions faces challenges in terms of effectively translating the institutions’ stated objectives into tangible improvements for children, potentially hindered by the gap between legislative frameworks and the complex realities of child welfare in the region. The Kerala Child Welfare Committees (CWCs) are plagued by structural issues that deter effective protection and support of vulnerable children, leading to serious concerns about their ability to fulfill their mandated role (John 2022). While measures like the establishment of District Child Protection Units (DCPUs) and the deployment of qualified counselors in Kerala’s childcare institutions represent a positive step, a lack of interagency coordination, insufficient training for DCPU-posted counselors, a severe shortage of mental health professionals, limited public awareness of available services, and an absence of formal service documentation and effective assessment hinder the effective delivery of crucial support to children (Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (KeSCPCR) 2016). A report by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) also points out the inadequacy of counselors in Kerala (National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) 2020, p. 6).

Despite its high literacy and public welfare systems, subtle and often socially accepted deep-rooted caste discrimination persists in Kerala. This surfaces starkly during natural disasters like the 2018 floods, revealing epistemic discrimination towards the Dalit and marginalized communities during recurring environmental hazards and societal exclusion (National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) and National Dalit Watch 2019). In such circumstances, beyond social and economic factors, environmental vulnerability in Kerala also contributes to creating a distinct and pressing form of precarity for children. During ecological crises, children face heightened vulnerability due to overlooked psychological trauma, increased susceptibility to disease, a lack of child-friendly support in emergency shelters, and severe disruptions to their education (National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) and National Dalit Watch 2019; Nanditha and Sathyamurthi 2023).

Ecological concerns, intertwined with socio-political factors that perpetuate marginalization, form the central themes of films like Ottaal and Veyilmarangal. In an interview, Director Jayaraj discusses how the idea for the film was inspired by a photograph that appeared in The Hindu daily during the 2014 floods in Assam, which shows a child rowing a raft with goats on it. He added that Ottaal is not just an environmental film, as it highlights the enduring emotional pain and ongoing reality of child labor, mirroring the timeless suffering depicted in Chekhov’s Vanka, compelling viewers to confront their own inaction in the face of this pervasive issue. He also emphasizes the need for children to engage freely with nature, a right they are devoid of in such harsh circumstances (Jayaraj 2022).

Dr. Biju describes Veyilmarangal as a social critique exploring the eviction of marginalized communities, encompassing both human and animal displacement. He states that it exposes affluent society’s complicit silence toward extensive injustices, referencing historical land struggles like the Muthanga1 and Chengara2 strikes in Kerala, which highlighted the violation of Dalit and Adivasi rights. Furthermore, the film examines the state’s disproportionate response to ecological crises when marginalized communities are involved (Damodaran 2020). Through a posthumanist lens, we can see how the precarious lives of children in Kerala, as exemplified by Kuttappayi in Ottaal and Achu in Veyilmarangal, are inextricably linked to the vulnerability of the animals and the environment they inhabit, highlighting a shared precarity that transcends traditional anthropocentric boundaries. This is not simply a human animal bond, but a sign of the way that all living things are impacted by the same systems of precarity.

Children, in general, are often located in the cinematic landscape as innocent, vulnerable, and immature (Olson 2018, p. xi; Bushati 2018, p. 34). In examining diverse portrayals of child characters across various films, Karen Lury (2010) argues that childhood, the concept of ‘child’, and children themselves are positioned as ‘other’—distinct from the supposedly rational, civilized, and mature adult. Indian cinema, despite its prolific production and significant global market share, produces a comparatively limited number of films centered on children, whether intended for child audiences or exploring child-related themes (Rajagopalan 2013; Ghalian 2020). In commercial or mainstream Indian films, child characters exist as stock characters or are used as comic relief or to promulgate the virtue of innocence (Rajagopalan 2013, p. 2). Likewise, mainstream Malayalam cinema often features the ‘child body’, without exploring the complexities of ‘childhood’, repeatedly presenting child characters as vehicles for adult nostalgia rather than authentic portrayals of children’s lives (Kurian and Navaneeth 2023). While non-mainstream Indian cinema often explores diverse themes and cinematic approaches, the representation of children in such films remains occasional (Rajagopalan 2013). Both Ottaal and Veyilmarangal present the ontological relationality of their child characters within their context and the ecological, political, and social realities of the people in Kerala. Although both films belong to the era of new-generation cinema3, these are parallel or arthouse films due to their non-commercial aspects and sensitive and offbeat treatment of their subjects. Dr. Biju (2013) opines that although arthouse films in Malayalam were once appreciated for their unconventional aesthetic style or content, such experiments in the last few decades have followed a traditional template and have failed to address contemporary issues, making them considerably antiquated. The films discussed in the present study address social concerns relevant to the contemporary period.

Ottaal (translated as The Trap), loosely based on Anton Chekov’s “Vanka”, which was published in 1886, conveys the deprivation and physical and emotional torture faced by child laborers. Ottaal displays the relationship between a parentless young boy named Kuttapayi and his ailing grandfather, whom he fondly calls Vallyappachayi. The film also begins with a scene showing a troubled Kuttapayi writing a letter in the candlelight to his grandfather on Christmas Eve, wishing him a merry Christmas and describing his plight at his workplace. A close-up shot of Kuttapayi in tears as he writes the letter cuts to a flashback of his life with Vallyappachayi in Kuttanad4. Along with the complex negotiation of emotions by representations of warmth in relationships, the vulnerability of downtrodden lives, and the angst of separations, the film also successfully captures the sensuous charm of the much exoticized landscape and waterscape of Kuttanad, the low-lying region of Kerala. Apart from National and State awards, Ottaal also received the Crystal Bear Award5 (under the Generation Kplus category) at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2016.

Veyilmarangal (translated as Trees Under the Sun) was screened at various film festivals, winning the Outstanding Artistic Achievement award at the Shanghai International Film Festival in the year 2019. The film begins with an aerial shot of a boy rowing his small canoe boat, and the camera pans down to show him passing through a yellow frame in the middle of water. Just as he navigates through the yellow frame, a lightning bolt ignites it, and he watches it in despair. The next shot reveals that the yellow wooden frame symbolically represents the jamb of a door and suggests a yearning for a home where he desires to live with his family (Damodaran n.d.). Veyilmarangal aptly depicts the politics of caste identity and power hierarchies existing in contemporary Indian society by representing the struggles of a Dalit family in two spatially distinct contexts—Kerala, the southernmost Indian state, and Himachal Pradesh, a northern Indian state—with experiences that eventually merge together to narrate their displacement, alienation, deprivation, and marginalization. In both Ottaal and Veyilmarangal, nature functions as a leitmotif that strongly represents the precariousness and emotions of the characters.

Discussions concerning land politics in India often present tribal and Dalit communities as natural environmentalists and untouched by modernity, conveniently disregarding their intricate relationship with the environment. Such a romanticization allows urban elites to evade accountability and obligation for environmental damage caused by their consumerist patterns even while they claim to promote tribal protection (Markose 2019, pp. 5–6). India’s environmental issues are deeply linked to social inequalities, with concerns ranging from many instances of environmental injustices—for example, mining and quarrying in tribal regions—to construction of factories close to Dalit settlements, land encroachments and evacuation of people from their localities, and lack of understanding of the intricacies of human–animal relations among Adivasi communities (Venugopal 2022, p. 261). The ecological crises, whether natural or man-made, are persistent reminders of the urgency to develop equitable policies that address the changing climate and provide sustainable solutions (Thomas and Kumar 2019). During an ecological catastrophe, the experiences of caste–subaltern groups and non-human groups are similar, as they are both relegated within the societal hierarchy and denied their fundamental rights (Pillai and James 2023, p. 3). While Veyilmarangal directly touches upon these issues through visual presentation, Ottaal invokes its audiences through natural dialogues and the raw emotions of its characters. Building on the context of migration and displacement set by discourses on problems of anthropocentrism, this article foregrounds the child as a direct victim during such calamities.

2. Posthuman Ethos and Precarity

The convergence of film studies and posthumanism has yielded significant scholarship focusing on the visual representation of the posthuman from transhumanist (Hauskeller et al. 2015) and critical posthumanist (Molloy et al. 2023) perspectives. Most of the academic discourses on Indian films and posthumanism study the non-human characters that are human–machine (cyborg) or human–animal (monster) hybrids (Lakkad 2018; Ghosal 2024) or explore robots and cyborgs in relation to Indian philosophy (Cohen 2022; Srinivas 2023), rarely exploring critical posthumanist perspectives. A critical posthumanist study on Veyilmarangal explores the plight of eco-caste migrants in Kerala, drawing parallels between societal hierarchies of non-human and sub-human groups in the context of ecological disaster (Pillai and James 2023). However, the intersectional vulnerabilities and environmental precarity shaping precarious childhoods within the specific context of displacement and ecological catastrophe in Kerala remain under-examined from a posthumanist perspective. While existing scholarship on precarity and film studies has explored lack of security, vulnerability and powerlessness, social exclusion, injustice and inequalities, and workers’ rights and protection (Burucúa and Sitnisky 2019; Brasell et al. 2020; Entin 2023), incorporating posthumanist theory can aid in challenging anthropocentrism, rethinking identity and agency, expanding the scope of ethical and ecological concerns, and exploring new forms of resistance and solidarity.

This paper attempts to read the films Ottaal and Veyilmarangal through a critical posthumanist lens rooted in a localized context. This is relevant to resisting the homogenizing tendency of capitalism, which is often contested in critical posthumanist discourses. Posthumanism encompasses multiple meanings from various disciplines and has philosophical outlooks focusing on the claims of altering the concept of humanity and transgressing human/non-human boundaries, such as transhumanism, philosophical posthumanism, cultural posthumanism, critical posthumanism, and others (Ferrando 2013). Critical posthumanism “sees the human as an instantiation of a network of connections, exchanges, linkages and crossings with all forms of life” (Nayar 2014, p. 5). According to Rosi Braidotti, critical posthumanities is a supra-disciplinary and rhizomatic field that focuses on the present, creating spaces for the ‘missing people’ (marginalized groups) and involving social movements and new economic practices beyond capitalist axioms (2018). Through the interaction between characters and events in the two films, one finds a critical threshold where the posthuman and precariat appear to intersect, seen here in the characters of Kuttapayi and Achu. Further, this article posits that a critical posthumanist framework intersects with ideas of precarity and subalternity, urging the development of awareness and responsiveness towards ecological issues, accommodating diversity and inclusiveness, and establishing interconnectedness.

Posthumanism envisions a world where living (organisms such as plants, animals, fungi, or microorganisms) and non-living entities (natural things, physical objects, and technology) coexist, and ‘human beings’ understand their intrinsic relationship with the natural and material world (Braidotti 2013a). That is, posthumanist studies urge broadening the idea of ‘human’ by forfeiting anthropocentric binarity. At this geological epoch of the Anthropocene, the binaries extend towards human/machine, human/animal, human/robot, and human(culture)/nature where capitalist consumerist humans exert power and attempt to control the ‘other’. Advanced capitalism commodifies (exploits) all forms of life—human and non-human—for profit and unifies (reduces) all species in an interconnection “through a panhuman bond of vulnerability” (Braidotti 2013b, p. 7). Perhaps the term Capitalocene is more apt for describing this era, as capitalist systems are the primary impetuses of ecological crises and climate change (Malm and Hornborg 2014). The ecosystems are harmed by drivers of the fossil economy who are privileged, unlike the majority of the population living in impoverished conditions (Malm 2013).

Murris states that “posthuman subjectivity is both materialist (nature–culture) and self-organising, removing the individualised human from the centre of the epistemological and ontological universe” (Murris 2015, p. 59). But being the ‘individualized human’ is a privilege that many within marginalized societies are still denied in many parts of this world. Often, Western philosophy tends to universalize experiences and theorizes solutions without addressing existing issues in several regions. Ideally, posthuman philosophy should be built on the notion that all humans are equal, with equal access to resources and opportunities and standardized living conditions.

However, history, through its narratives, has established a hegemony where an individual cannot define the personal self but should adhere to the societal-set standards of gender and power relations to assert one’s identity. Indian society, situated on its hierarchies built on gender, caste, religion, and region, is ingrained, and the process of restructuring this history will be fairly problematic as well as unfavored by the privileged majority. The colonial history also sheds light on what is considered superior (the colonizer’s ideals) and what is negated as inferior (the practices of the colonized), from which Indian society is still not free. Several studies have critically examined the themes of race, animality, and the construction of humanness, highlighting the intersection of enslaved Black people and non-human animals in their shared experiences of social exclusion and oppression (Jackson 2013; Boisseron 2018; Bennett 2020). While the specific historical and social contexts differ and direct comparisons can be problematic, these focus on critiquing hierarchies, examining dehumanization, and exploring resistance and interdisciplinary approaches that can be extended to caste/class studies in India.

The existing epistemic violence in the production and implementation of humanist knowledge feeds on certain essentialist values of ‘humanity’ administered by the ‘privileged’ (in this context, Western and savarna6) society. This is limiting and results in the capitalistic consumerist concepts of “individualism, universalism, and self-determinism” (Duobliene and Vaitekaitis 2021, p. 44), which leads to stratification of society, exploitation of power, and manipulation of science and technology (Braidotti 2013a, p. 48). Braidotti invites multilayered and multidimensional production of posthuman knowledge that can stimulate an understanding of ontological relationality and form creative solutions to displace anthropocentrism (Braidotti 2019). Asserting that overcoming human primacy should not be “replaced with other types of primacies (such as the one of the machines),” Ferrando states posthumanism should be “seen as a post-exclusivism: an empirical philosophy of mediation which offers a reconciliation of existence in its broadest significations” (Ferrando 2013, p. 29).

Posthumanism rejects traditional Western humanism (Bolter 2016, p. 1) and opposes binary oppositions by discarding any prerogatives founded on anthropocentric supremacy. But for multilayered posthumanist knowledge production demanded by the current period, it is significant to understand the intrinsic layers of subjugation and domination that work within particular regions of each society. Also, there should be interactions among various philosophical stances to have rhizomatic engagements with no center point but unrestricted growth. Vulnerabilities and inequalities are reflections of social and economic instabilities that impact human lives, rendering precarity. The impact of neoliberal global markets intensifies how people and communities experience and survive precarity. The massive exploitation of technology and financial insecurities influences underdeveloped and developing economies more severely. These subjectivities integrate and negotiate a scope for different philosophies to come together. While theories of precarity and posthumanism are different philosophical approaches, they intersect and converge in critiquing traditional humanist viewpoints, negotiating inequalities, and addressing environmental crises.

3. Precarious Childhoods in Ottaal and Veyilmarangal: Through a Posthuman Lens

Both Kuttapayi (Ottaal) and Achu (Veyilmarangal) experience displacement; for Achu, it is a direct consequence of ecological and social crises, but for Kuttapayi, it is an indirect result of the debt trap that led to his parents’ suicide. Drawing upon Donna Haraway’s concept of ‘companion species’ (in The Companion Species Manifesto, Haraway 2003), this article reflects on the attempts of characters Kuttapayi and Achu to negotiate a space for themselves amidst the question of belongingness through their relations with animals and the environment around them. These characters delineate a critical argument around the posthuman embodiment in Kuttapayi and Achu. The representations of precarity and precarious childhoods in both films are explored in the initial part of the analysis to set the context for discussions on posthumanist tendencies.

Ottaal’s Kuttapayi is an orphan whose parents committed suicide after failing to repay an agricultural loan. He is far removed from social strata and is denied his fundamental constitutional rights. After the suicide of his parents, his only refuge is his aged grandfather, who is referred to as Tharavumappila (Tharavu refers to duck and Mappila refers to a Christian man in the central Travancore context) since he makes his living by rearing ducks. He sells duck eggs to an upper-caste elite, Bettychen. In the film, it is revealed that Kuttapayi had also consumed the same poisoned rice that his parents had eaten in order to commit suicide, but he somehow survived. A study that focused on farmer suicides in India based on data from the year 2015 states that despite a high literacy rate and limited area under food grain cultivation, Kerala has high rates of farmer suicide and a heavy burden of debt (Bhattacharyya et al. 2020, p. 492). Decades of neglect, fluctuating market rates, economic inflation, and unpredictable monsoons and climate change have reduced profits and driven up debt for Kerala’s farmers, making them especially vulnerable (Sivagnanam 2017, p. 2). Generally, in India, neoliberal agricultural policies that are still structured on patriarchal terms and reliant on hefty loans create financial hardship that may lead to suicide, leaving widows, and specifically children, extremely helpless (Falnikar and Dutta 2019, p. 442). Such situations lead to children being employed in factories, shops, agricultural lands, or other hazardous jobs, denying them access to their fundamental right to education.

An establishing shot in Ottaal shows many children sleeping on the floor in a room with no ventilation, which suggests the exploitation of deprived, hapless children bound by child labor. Although Kuttapayi’s grandfather desires to give him a better life, his aging and diseased condition makes him helpless and dependent on Mestheri, who is rough, self-interested, and arrogant, to find a solution to his plight. Knowing Kuttapayi’s desire to gain a formal education, his grandfather tells Mestheri that Kuttapayi will agree to go with him only if he believes that he will be sent to school. So, on the pretext of admitting him to a school, Mestheri sells Kuttapayi to a businessman in Tamil Nadu who runs a firecracker factory. When Kuttapayi pleads that he wants to return to his Vallyappachayi, through an over-the-shoulder shot, the audience witnesses an intimidating Mestheri who refuses to take him back. Although Kerala has a lower incidence of child labor (Subbaraman and Witzke 2007, p. 105), instances of child maltreatment and abuse are still rampant within Kerala society (Damodaran and Paul 2018). At present, a major crisis with regard to child trafficking is the interstate movement of children from their home states to distant states for labor, as seen in the flow from eastern states to migrant-receiving regions in India (Ray 2024). In the film too, Bettychen is hesitant to engage Kuttapayi to perform menial tasks in his houseboat as he fears incarceration for employing a minor, resulting in Kuttapayi being sold outside the state. Mestheri insists that children like Kuttapayi must earn their living instead of loitering around. Powerless children living in precarious conditions can live their lives only by tackling the absence of ‘childhood’, that is, the perception of children as individuals that require shelter, support, and freedom to engage in play. Their lives are valued only in terms of money that they can earn, and hence they are forced to take up adult roles through bonded labor, child marriages, and even prostitution (Ang 2019, p. 230). With no control over his life, Kuttapayi embodies the precarity and vulnerabilities of a powerless child.

Through frequent wide shots, Ottaal shows Kuttapayi and Vallyappachayi together, giving us images of the setting such as wetlands, backwaters, skewers of egrets, flocks of ducks, nests of migratory birds, and water lilies. These shots reveal the strong link between the key characters and their environment as they situate the characters within their distinct ecosystem. Also, the film draws many parallels between the natural world and the two characters. Talking about the migratory birds shown in a wide shot, Vallyappachayi says that the birds are just like them; they come after harvest season, build a temporary nest, lay eggs, and fly away with their baby birds. Kuttapayi asks, “What about the babies without a father or a mother?” (Jayaraj 2014, 00:19:56), allegorically referring to his own plight.

Veyilmarangal portrays two kinds of precarities that afflict Achu’s family, such as ecological disasters and multilayered forms of social exclusion that reveal multiple layers of vulnerabilities. In the beginning of the film, it is shown that Achu’s ‘unnamed’ parents are daily-wage laborers, while Achu supplements their income by selling salted peanuts from a pushcart on the roadside. The police reprimand Achu, and particularly his father, invoking the illegality of child labor, yet through a narrative set in the context of an ecological crisis, the audience witnesses how the state and society fail to provide sustainable solutions to their socio-economic precarity. Factors like parental presence and the age of a character impact how audiences respond to the vulnerable child characters in these films. Achu, who works to make additional income for the family, is oblivious to the exploitation innate to being employed as a child laborer, while Kuttapayi’s plight appears deplorable and more painful.

At the outset of Veyilmarangal, they live in the scenic backwaters of an island, which is experiencing land subsidence and is subsequently submerged due to incessant rains. The film employs numerous static shots to illustrate the impact of rain, thunder, and lightning on both human and non-human inhabitants living in precarious conditions. But after the island gets submerged, the intensity of the loss is shown through aerial and wide shots. As refugees, they are denied any financial assistance from the government since they do not possess the national identity document—an Aadhar card—hinting that the government and its machinery are almost oblivious to their existence. To subsist, the family finds a temporary shelter, and Achu’s father finds a job at a restaurant as a cleaner. While returning from his workplace, Achu’s father is humiliated by a mob on a bus, who accuse him of pickpocketing, without any evidence, just because of his ‘shabby’ appearance. Actor Indrans7 has played Achu’s father in the film, who has often been typecasted to play the less significant characters with a peculiar physical demeanour or the Dalit characters in Malayalam Cinema. These earlier portrayals were to evoke laughter or to showcase the machoism of the ‘savarna hero’ (Karthika 2022), since his body did not fit ‘mainstream standards of beauty’ but was rather considered more appropriate for ‘casteist’ depictions. In this film, there is a deliberate shift in perspective, where the experiences of the family reveal how deep-rooted injustice and state machinery collectively make them subaltern. He is kept in jail for a night where the police, which functions as a dispositif apparatus, further debases him. In this scene, a portrait of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar8 hanging on a wall of the police station is juxtaposed with a close-up shot of Indrans, who pleads for his innocence. The next day, the complaint is withdrawn as the complainant finds the wallet at his home, and Achu’s father is released. In the following scene, Achu and his mother, anxious over the absence of the father the previous night, question his whereabouts, about which the father remains mute. This scene emphasizes the subaltern status of Achu and his parents, who are shown as helpless before authoritarian power forms.

Due to their underprivileged circumstances, Achu’s family has no rights or dignity in the land that they call home. This realization leads to the father deciding to move with the family to Himachal Pradesh and take employment at an apple orchard owned by a zamindar (landlord). Kerala’s history of anti-caste struggles and labor rights by left groups has not extended to egalitarian developments, as claimed by certain political parties. Since the 1970s, Kerala has been celebrated as a progressive state, and its ‘Kerala model’ of social democratic development, although with a lower per capita income, is highly renowned. It also has an idealized image in popular culture as abundant with natural resources and greenery. Devika critiques the celebration of Kerala as a ‘near-egalitarian paradise’ as it does not address the “exclusion of lower-castes (Dalits) and coastal and tribal communities and works against their struggle for resources and citizenship” (Devika 2010, p. 800). The struggles of Achu and his parents for survival and identity reveal the many inequalities that are rampant in Kerala.

Both Kuttapayi and Achu’s relationships with companion species reveal an inter-species bond that is deeper than the adult-centric view (utilitarian) of animal–human relations. While the power imbalance inherent in the human/animal binary favors humans, Achu and Kuttapayi’s actions demonstrate a conscious choice to extend empathy towards other species. This choice is particularly significant considering their own experiences of disempowerment, marking the need for empathetic understanding of vulnerability across and within species boundaries. In the scene where Kuttapayi and Vallyappachayi travel in a pickup truck driven by Mestheri with ducks stacked together, Kuttapayi is shown holding a duckling with great care and not bothered about the ‘unpleasant odor’, refusing to let go of it despite being reprimanded by Mestheri. His interaction with the non-human is pivotal in establishing the posthumanist position of the film. He befriends a dog that he finds in a field and calls him ‘Perilla Patti’ (Nameless Dog). In the act of naming an animal, the human attempts an act of domesticating the animal, which is owned by the human master; this relationship functions on the dualism of master/slave (owner/pet). Animals are reduced and exploited to be “in the service of a certain being and the so-called human well-being of man” (Derrida 2002, p. 394). The companionship between the dog and Kuttapayi disrupts or ruptures this notion (Figure 1). They are shown together in several scenes, and in Kuttapayi’s emotional letter, he mentions that he reminisces about the memories of Kuttanad with all his loved ones—Vallyappachayi, Tinku, Tinku’s mother, and the nameless dog. Tinku’s father (Bettychen) disapproves of his friendship with Kuttapayi due to the social distinctions between the two, but Kuttapayi’s companionship with the non-human is beyond such differences and restrictions.

When Achu’s home in Veyilmarangal gets submerged, he is concerned about the puppy whom he had taken home and is disheartened when he fails to rescue the dog. He realizes the necessity to extend whatever shelter can be provided in their drastic situation to those animals dependent on them. This viewpoint is not centered on mere compassion for animals but is rooted in his association with those animals as companion species. His stance on the world around him springs from the concept of living ‘intersectionally’ with a companion species. This is evident in his relationship with a lamb he finds at a farm in Himachal Pradesh. Kuttapayi and the dog as well as Achu and the lamb are “bonded in significant otherness” (Haraway 2003, p. 16); that is, they are entangled together with a shared understanding and purpose that helps in terms of adapting to external conditions. On the contrary, several commercial Malayalam films in the past that focused on human–animal relationships (such as C.I.D. Moosa, Ring Master, and Neymar) showed humans as the ‘owner’ of the ‘pet/animal’, but the films discussed here break off from this pattern of domination and exploitation. Hence, characters like Kuttapayi and Achu reject the normalization of such a human-centered worldview.

Malone asserts that a sense of territoriality for a child is closely related to the ways humans and non-humans interact in that environment, their associations with the place, and how they perceive meaning in the place (Malone 2016, p. 52). Kuttapayi’s close association with nature through observing, discerning, and interacting gives him more knowledge about the physical world and the inter-relationality of entities. This sensibility guides his act of identifying pupae and tadpoles, which contrasts with the idea of a traditional classroom/classical education. He states that the creation of an art piece using clay is possible due to sensorial skills, which are innate and natural, and comparable to the song of a cuckoo bird or a kingfisher catching fish. Similar to Kuttapayi, Achu too is free to engage with the new place and explore his surroundings with minimal interference from the adults around him. Drawing from Felix Guattari’s concept of three ecologies9, Braidotti states that it is “the intricate web of interrelations that mark the contemporary subjects’ relationship to their multiple ecologies, the natural, the social, the psychic” (Braidotti 2013a, p. 98). Even in the face of extremities, Achu and Kuttapayi become instrumental in deciphering the evolutionary process(es) of nature while establishing that the effects of nature can be asymmetrical.

These films challenge the therapeutic and rejuvenating side of the natural world popularized by media and tourism industries and successfully delineate its destructive and restorative forces. The underprivileged, like Achu and his family, are more likely to face the destructive aspect of nature, leading to their displacement, and these situations disrupt notions of anthropocentric supremacy. Realizing that we all are part of nature is significant, as well as understanding that each person’s interaction with nature is different. Achu’s father’s dream of his son drowning in the lake shows his subconscious memories layered with eco-anxiety and eco-trauma. Veyilmarangal often alludes to Achu and his father’s dream sequences, utilizing a dull visual tone to contrast them with reality. Achu’s recurrent dream is of the yellow frame, which represents his longing and hope for a home. Here, the child symbolizes resilience and preparedness, not anxiety, in the face of chaos caused by ecological disaster. These reactions are based on their personal experiences and an approach towards nature that is beyond them.

Achu, who has no peers to befriend, finds shelter in an unknown territory through his camaraderie with his companion lamb. They are consorts in their exploration of the surrounding environment, where they learn lessons with respect to living sustainably. When the lamb goes missing, Achu sets out into the forest in search of the lamb and injures himself in the process of rescuing his companion. A high-angle shot shows the lamb and Achu, who had slipped into a gap, marking them both as equally vulnerable. It is his love and affection for the companion species that helps sustain him through the hardships of a new place. As Haraway states, “the temporalities of companion species comprehend all the possibilities activated in becoming with, including the heterogeneous scales of evolutionary time for everybody but also the many other rhythms of conjoined process” (Haraway 2008, p. 25).

Unlike Achu, Kuttapayi has the chance to interact with his peers through Tinku, but he too struggles to overcome class and caste barriers, which result from his attempts at friendship being rarely reciprocated. Tinku and his mother are sympathetic to Kuttapayi, but due to their privileges in terms of caste and hegemony, their sympathy extends into actions of belittlement. When Tinku fails to maintain his promise and does not show up on a Sunday to meet Kuttapayi, he is heartbroken and saddened. His attempts to prepare rice and fish curry in the new vessel along with his Vallyappachayi are futile. When Kuttapayi goes to Tinku’s house to inquire about his absence, Bettychen insults him by asking his wife to feed him the leftover food. This particular incident makes Kuttapayi realize that his relationship with Tinku cannot be egalitarian or unbiased. But he still attempts to extend his friendship to Tinku without any malice, hoping for an enduring mutual affection.

When the teacher scolds Tinku at school for not submitting his art project, Kuttapayi makes a terracotta model of a man attempting to catch fish with a fishing rod for the art exhibition at school. Kuttapayi is also more aware and empathetic towards processes and transformations in nature and helps Tinku to form an assemblage with non-human participants of nature. Although Tinku enjoys these interactions, he fails to express or reciprocate Kuttapayi’s affection due to his predisposition to the ‘established social order’, represented in the film by several adults such as his own parents; so, when he receives an award for the best art exhibit, which Kuttapayi made, their relationship becomes equivalent to that of master–slave, just like the relationship between his father and Kuttapayi’s grandfather. When Tinku comes home in a soiled school uniform after his wanderings with Kuttapayi, he is scolded and reminded by his parents that ‘such friendships’ are not required for him. But Kuttapayi’s relationship with the companion dog is non-exploitative and symbiotic, with no such social class or caste distinctions separating them. The posthuman dimension deconstructs species supremacy and the “notion of human nature, anthropos and bios, as categorically distinct from the life of animals and non-humans, or zoe” (Braidotti 2013b, p. 8).

In Malayalam films in general, child characterizations are flat, with negligible attention to details and development of the character. But Kuttapayi and Achu deviate from such casual portrayals, and several events in their lives make a deeper impact on the estimation of their characters. For instance, in an initial scene in the film, the police verbally abuse Achu and his father when they spot Achu selling peanuts on his cart in an unauthorized spot on the roadside. He does not question their authority nor express his disdain over such encounters. But later, while in Himachal Pradesh, when the zamindar asks them to leave the farm as he had found a cheaper substitute for them, Achu defends his ‘right’ with respect to the lamb. Achu’s relationship with the companion lamb becomes significant and deeply impacts his personality, especially because of his helplessness in terms of protecting the puppy when his home was submerged. Unlike the ‘owner–cattle’ relationship, Achu is unable to abandon his companion for his own convenience, unlike the previous caretaker of the farm who had left the lamb to ‘its fate’. His concern for the companion lamb helps him break the rigid hierarchical boundary that exists based on one’s caste identity. As Braidotti (2018) points out, privileged humans “create structural distinctions and inequalities among different categories of humans, let alone between humans and non-humans”. As Achu gets beaten up by the zamindar for polluting him with his touch, the father becomes enraged, and in a tracking shot, the audience sees him going inside the house to pick up the gun provided to them for killing wild animals. He points the gun at the camera, implying the complacence of the viewer in situations of injustice around them. In a following shot, he is shown pointing the gun at the zamindar, asserting that they will take the lamb as they leave (Figure 2). In all the earlier scenes with the zamindar, he is physically positioned in a place of power—either on the first floor of a building or seated in his personal chair—while Achu’s family is consistently shown standing on the ground, highlighting their powerlessness. The stifled family finally lets out their pent-up indignation towards society and places themselves as equal to the zamindar in terms of dignity and their rights. The concluding scene shows the family walking along with the lamb, and as Achu turns, he sees again the yellow frame, which symbolizes his longing for a home of their own.

But Kuttapayi is ‘trapped’ (like a fish is in an Ottaal, a fishing contraption) under ‘the predatory adults’ (like Mestheri, Bettychen, and the employees in the fire factory) who continue to exploit him, denying him his civil rights. The film opens with him writing a letter to his Vallyappachayi in which he relates his traumatic experiences and reminisces about his life in Kuttanad. Through a hard cut, the scene transitions from the serene beauty of Kuttanad to the busy streets of a crowded city in the present time. A full-frame fisheye shot, coupled with a time-lapse effect, highlights the stark contrast between these two worlds, underscoring the chaos and the harsh reality of Kuttapayi’s life as a child laborer. His employer mistreats him. He has to undertake heavy work, survive on scanty and infrequent meals, and is often beaten up by his employer. Within Kuttapayi’s dream, a blurred shot shows his letter finally reaching Vallyappachayi, who reads it alongside Tinku and Perilla Patti. This glimpse into his hopeful vision intensifies the sense of tragedy, as the audience is left with the heavy realization that this dream may never come true. Although he wants to escape, it is almost impossible due to his lack of agency in a space with no support system. The letter will most likely not reach his grandfather, as he does not write the name or address of his grandfather; for Kuttapayi, it seems that these specifications are almost incomprehensible, possibly because in his phenomenological reality, humans and non-humans remain nameless. But like the art piece made by Kuttapayi, showing a man’s relentless attempt to catch fish with a fishing rod, the letter also symbolically indicates hope, which is a major source of resilience.

Both films have employed name(s), or rather namelessness, as a political vantage point for establishing the subaltern identity of their characters. In Veyilmarangal, Achu’s parents remain unnamed throughout the film, reinforcing their lack of identity in a world that considers them subhuman. Their ‘namelessness’ resonates with the ‘namelessness’ of the other non/sub-humans in the film, hence drawing them into one distinct category. This is reinforced by the lack of any government documentation, emphasizing that for the bureaucratic order, they are non-existent. Similarly, in Ottaal, Tinku’s parents refer to Kuttapayi as Tharachekkan (duck boy) and his grandfather as Tharavumappila, where their identity is solely informed by their job, which is considered worthless. When read alongside the practices followed in pre-independence Indian society, where people performing menial tasks were considered untouchable and unworthy of equal treatment in terms of social practices, the film exposes the deeply etched discriminatory and conformist patriarchy still prevalent among the likes of Tinku’s parents. Kuttapayi’s parting gift to Tinku is a duckling, which he left on the crèche as Tinku had not returned from school. This can be read from the posthumanist stance of becoming-animal, since for Kuttapayi, the duckling is a significant part of his identity and a metaphor for himself.

4. Conclusions

The discourses in the films reveal how the loss of agency is intensified for children during the phase of migration. The vulnerabilities of Kuttapayi converge with his loss of agency and ability to make a decision with respect to whether he should leave his home. Although for Achu, lack of agency is an extension of his precarious existence, resulting in his displacement, his resurgence in the climax of the film reveals his attempt to reclaim his denied agency.

Focusing on the intersections of precarity and subhuman lives, this article has essayed to locate an alternative conjunct discursive framework that relies on complexity, subjectivity, and survival, and also a rethinking of the notion of ‘human’. The ideas of cohabitation and companion species intersect with precarity in films like Veyilmarangal and Ottaal and urge for a ‘better future’ through self-realization and interspecies interaction. Both Achu and Kuttapayi’s experiences of social ostracization and migration stem from economic insecurity and displacement. However, while Kuttapayi’s ostracization leaves him traumatized, Achu, who comes from a family of precariats, extends his resilience to the companion lamb.

Both films use precarious childhoods to suggest the need for structured welfare policies for children that focus on their needs, mental development, and an education that is inclusive of non-human participants. The depiction of precarious childhoods serves as a powerful critique of the existing systems, urging the creation of policies that address not only the material needs of children but also their emotional and psychological well-being. This includes fostering environments where both human and non-human participants play a critical role in a child’s holistic development, ultimately ensuring a more inclusive and empathetic future.