This summer when we were in Goa, I introduced my partner to the marvel that is the jackfruit tree. He was as astonished as I have always been by the ratio of tree trunk to fruit size. He even choreographed a photograph where we held our unusually tall child against a low-hanging specimen so he could illustrate to his family back home just how large a jackfruit is. We took other photographs to show how it can also grow at spectacular heights. He’s never been a fruit lover. The opposite, in fact. I cannot even eat an apple in the immediate vicinity of where he’s sitting. It repulses him. So, I couldn’t convince him of the joys of the ripened flesh or help him understand why my brothers often take an entire fruit, the weight of a piece of fully packed cabin luggage, for sure, all the way from Goa to Dubai during summer. He did, however, grasp the enormity of the prickly green large sac-like fruit. This came in handy when I tried to sell him on the idea of watching Kathal, which released just last week on Netflix. Someone I follow on Instagram had mentioned that the film was a pitch-perfect satire, and it came highly recommended by them. I took one look at the trailer and felt convinced. Give me a protagonist who is female, from a lower caste and is in a position of relative power and I am a willing audience member. So, one day after it was released, my partner and I watched this delightful treat.

We have not been able to stop talking about it. Every day, in random moments, a thought occurs that takes one of us back to a scene and we are compelled to think about the genius of the script. Pitted as a ‘jackfruit mystery’, the plot essentially revolves around two jackfruits from a ‘Malaysian breed’ that go missing from a politician’s garden. The police must ‘investigate’ this ‘crime’. What unfolds is an excellent cinematic instance of the interconnectedness of systemic issues. The film explores dimensions of caste, sexism, dowry, sex trafficking, corruption and so much else, through the lens of humour, without downplaying the weight of any of these issues, in fact, the seeming ‘lightness’ of the script magnifies these evils, revealing their continued grasp on Indian society.