A PRESS MEET WHERE REAL QUESTIONS STAYED OUTSIDE

Between applause lines and pre-approved posers at the media junket in Dubai for Mohanlal's Vrusshabha, journalism quietly slipped out of the room

- By Manjusha Radhakrishnan

Mohanlal arrives for the press conference held at Star Cinemas in Al Ghurair Centre, Dubai

There is a biting Malayalam saying: when a daughter is writhing in labour pain, the mother is busy playing the violin.

Another version is even starker: when your house is on fire, you are outside planting banana trees.

A disturbingly apt version of that proverb played out in Dubai when local media was invited to cover the press junket for Mohanlal's sweeping period saga Vrusshabha, out in UAE cinemas on December 25.

The burning question in the room — unspoken but impossible to ignore — had little to do with trailers, genres, or pan-Indian ambitions. It was this: why did Mohanlal choose to act alongside Dileep, the recently acquitted actor in Kerala's most controversial sexual assault case? Was this a quiet rehabilitation enabled by star clout? And does a cultural institution like Mohanlal, who in an earlier interview with Gulf News dismissed #MeToo as a fad, carry a larger moral responsibility in an industry still reckoning with power, silence, and accountability?

SCRUTINY? NO

But even before the press conference at Star Cinemas, Al Ghurair Centre, could properly unfold, the rules were laid down — firmly and repeatedly.

Host and actor RJ Mithun issued what effectively functioned as a gag order, reminding journalists at least four times to restrict questions strictly to the film. No diversions. No context. No discomfort. The insistence was so persistent it stopped sounding procedural and began to feel preventative.

What followed was one of the most sanitised, vanilla, and openly psychophantic press interactions imaginable.

The journalist in you didn't merely step aside — it died, packed its bags, and went on vacation.

Instead of scrutiny, we were offered philosophy.