She is a film actor, model, winner of Miss Kerala 2000 and one of the highest paid TV anchors in Kerala. She is also the woman that men in Kerala love to hate. Meet 32-year-old Ranjini Haridas, a woman who has successfully anchored a reality talent show for six years on Asianet, a Malayalam TV channel. An intelligent and independent woman who believes in living life her own way, she is little known outside Kerala, but within the state, she is an easy hate target for its patriarchy.
Google her name and the search throws up a ‘I Hate Ranjini Haridas’ facebook page. The profile picture on the page is a laughing picture of Ranjini, with an arrow photoshopped on it, as if stabbing her right though. They abuse her ancestry, they call her ugly, slut, whore, eunuch, corpse, a cunt. This spills over onto her official page too. This army of hate-filled men go to many lengths to try and discomfit her on social media. There was one instance when one of her pictures was juxtaposed with that of a performing monkey. There was another instance where a picture of a firecracker was put up. This apparently is colloquial in Malayalam for whore. There is virtually no aspect of her that is spared, whether it is her make up, her features, the person she poses with in a picture, her family or her love life.
It takes a special kind of skin to log into one’s account and read such comments about one’s self and still laugh at the world. Yet that’s what she does.
“It doesn’t affect me at all,” she said with a laugh in her voice. “It is obviously wrong to call out insults like this. I have no objection to being critiqued. But to sexually insult somebody else with language like this is not a reflection on my character, but theirs. If this is the extent to which men have to stoop to make us women feel bad, then it’s pathetic.”
There was another instance when a private photo of hers with another man went viral, bringing in even more abuse and controversy. But what is it about her that brings out this kind of unilateral hate within the state that is almost appalling in its intensity, yet fascinating too. Why her?
Is it the heavily anglicized Malayalam that she uses with utter confidence while anchoring a popular regional show like Idea Star Singer over the last six years? Or is it the outfits that she wears with utter indifference that spell rebellion in the kitchen to the mallu men watching this show?
To know it, one must understand the societal fabric within the state. Despite being dubbed a matrilinear state, Kerala in fact, remains conservative in many aspects, especially when it comes to women. A cursory flicking through Malayalam TV channels will show you the sharp contrast in female TV presenters there as compared to anchors on channels in other states and in Hindi channels. Female anchors in Malayalam TV channels still wear traditional attire with just a hint of make up. God forbid that the kohl-lined eyes appear ever so bold or the t-shirt that they wear on top of jeans is anything more than ordinary. Hair is styled into demure braids and buns while there are very few anchors who present the show alone. No. These women are required to stand on the side lines and smile vapidly while their male co-anchors yak all the way to the bank.
Enter Ranjini Haridas, with her sleeveless blouses, bodycon and knee-length shift dresses, lacy see-through attire and her designer high heels; hair styled exactly the way she wants with bold make up; she also held her own on the show, animated in her mannerisms, laughing and talking with everybody, hugging the contestants regardless of their gender, when required. All this was tastefully done in a manner that would fit in perfectly with reality shows across the country, but not here. She became a point of reference for young women coming into their own; she became the reason for their tiny sparks of rebellion; their emergence from the confines of domesticity. And the men hated her. She represented a threat to their carefully organised machismo domain.
Ranjini has her own views on it though. “I feel the men here are highly egotistic. For a man to see a woman, unmarried at 32, yet living the life she wants – she is always happy, frank about her dating life and without being answerable to anybody – that scares them,” she said. “Equality is still an issue here. Gender roles are very strongly defined – the man is in the living room and while he is there, the woman’s place is always in the kitchen. But the response from women today is heartening. They tell me to keep doing what I do, because their girls will see it and want to live a life of their choice too.”
Ask her if all the negativity gets to her at some point, and pat comes the reply. “Not at all,” she said. “At least not today. When I was 18 years old, all I wanted to do was get out of Kerala. My dad passed away when I was young and my grandparents were financing my education. This meant I got to hear a lot on ‘don’t do this, don’t sit like this, don’t wear clothes like this, don’t talk to boys’. By the time I was 21, I couldn’t handle it anymore. I simply walked out. I went to Bangalore and worked there for two years. Couldn’t handle that. So I went to London, but eventually I couldn’t live there either. I returned to Kerala, planning to go to Dubai. That was when I realised that my experience outside had changed me. I had seen how people were in other parts of the country and the world and I knew where I stood. I now had the confidence to deal with anything thrown my way, so I decided to stay put in Kerala. Besides it’s fun living here, my mum’s here, and an infinitely cool person she is, and family and friends too.”
“My mum is my rock,” she added. “She is one of the coolest people I know. Maybe it’s because of our Airforce background and the fact that we have travelled a lot. But even today, despite all that negativity and the morphed pictures, I can still have a good laugh over it with my mum.”
But perhaps her days of solitary crusade are soon to be a matter of the past. Today, there are many Ranjini Haridas clones on TV, dressing the way she does, speaking the way she speaks. “Well, I don’t know about Kerala, but in Cochin, the city where I live, there is immense change in behavior. Women are more confident, getting into entrepreneurship with family support, yet still retaining good values of marriage. That is something I really like. Despite everything that’s happened, I am not against men in general. I respect them. I want my life partner to be stronger than me. In that sense, perhaps I am a little traditional. But above all, he has to respect me!”
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