Documentary on Keralites' obsession with Russian names

ALAPPUZHA: Keralites, especially the communist followers, seem to be obsessed with Russian names    like Lenin, Stalin, Krushchev, Brezhnev, Pushkin, Gagarin, Tereshkova and Pravda. A documentary about this phenomenon is being made by a Kerala origin American,  Kavita Pillay, which will be released later this year. Kavita, who has roots in Thiruvananthapuram, is based in Ohio. She   is a graduate of Tufts and Johns Hopkins and has studied film at the Prague Film School. 

She started the work on the documentary titled 'Stalin, Lenin and other tales from South India' in 2009 and has travelled to Kerala many times to conduct a research into the topic.  She also interviewed many Keralites who embraced non-Indian names and the documentary profiles them.  The idea of the documentary was born during her family trips to Kerala in her childhood and she was struck by the communist iconography and the prevalence of non-Indian names.

The documentary says the caste discrimination played a role in making Russian names popular, though there are  non-Russian, non-communist names too like  Mussolini, Kennedy, Lincoln, Nixon and Hitler. "The communists have built monuments for martyrs and conduct annual observances, but still religion is strong in the social life of communist Kerala.  The backward class people believe that by giving such names to their children they can reject the system that has denied them their rights.  They hope their children would stand up against the system," she says.

She has found that communism in Kerala is kept alive by capitalism. "Lakhs of Keralites go to the oil-rich countries in West Asia and send money  back home. That's how communism works in Kerala," the documentary says.    Kavita has received documentary-related grants and fellowships from the WGBH Boston Filmmaker in Residence programme, Fulbright Fellowship programme, Flaherty Film seminars, Sundance Institute and the Sundance Creative Producing Fellowship and Lab.