Anjali Menon’s Bangalore Days celebrates a landmark anniversary this year — it has been ten years since Malayalam cinema’s most popular cousins (Dulquer Salmaan, Nazriya and Nivin Pauly as Aju, Kunju and Kuttan) made sense of love, life and grief in Bengaluru, a home away from home. Adil, a strategic alliances professional in Bengaluru looks at the film’s anniversary as somehow his own signpost in life. He recalls making his way from Kochi to Bengaluru, three days before his MBA course, just to watch the film at a theatre in Shivaji Nagar. His association with the city started then, which was followed by an internship in 2014, and eventually a job in 2017. “Celebrating 10 years of the film almost feels like celebrating ten years of making this city my home,” says Adil.
The Malayalam drama follows the coming-of-age of three cousins who fight their own battles — Aju struggles to let himself fall in love, the tightly-wound Kuttan learns to judge less, and Kunju tries to connect to her wounded husband. But the problems somehow seem lighter, for they are at a place where anything seems to be possible. “Bangalore! What a rocking city,” Aju declares to his cousins, dreaming up a life for them on bed, days before leaving home. It’s not that films haven’t been set in the city before. But Bangalore Days is somehow still immediately recognised for giving the city character.
