In the tightly contained world of the Malayalee imagination, where anything that strays from the accepted staples is met with suspicion, arrived a young woman who unapologetically spoke Manglish. She laughed loudly, walked with a certain urban ease, and dressed to please no one in particular. She spoke more English than Malayalam and often seemed to overpower the very stage she stood on, all of this while hosting a Malayalam musical reality show.

When Ranjini Haridas helmed the second season of Idea Star Singer (2007), it was nothing short of a cultural jolt. Until then, Malayalee audiences were accustomed to anchors who were genteel, softly smiling, traditionally dressed, and almost self-erasing, personalities carefully trimmed to fit the show’s boundaries.

Ranjini was none of it. She brought with her a certain cosmopolitan assertiveness, more than a sprinkling of modernity, a dash of showmanship, that unsettled many. In a society where confidence in women is often admired only when it is muted, her volume itself felt radical. Her language became a lightning rod. “Manglish” wasn’t merely about words; it symbolised class anxieties, generational shifts, and discomfort with women who take up space without apology.

Whether you love her or critique her, it was clear that she disrupted a template. And in doing so, she forced Malayalam television to reckon with personality and not just presentation. It goes without saying that Malayalam anchoring never looked the same after her. What followed were either clones attempting the cadence and confidence or hosts visibly inspired by her disruption, but the raw authenticity that came so instinctively to Ranjini could never quite be recreated.

Two decades later, Ranjini is still around, being unshakably herself. She hosts her own show on YouTube, remains a favourite........

© Mathrubhumi English