Sometimes, all it takes to give us a nudge when we are hiccuping through our life is a well-delivered dialogue. Sometimes, dialogues strike us like grand epiphanies and we are suddenly enlightened.

Sometimes, words with their sheer power can help us transcend the barriers and boundaries that bind and blind us.

Here’s a list of 10 such dialogues from Malayalam cinema where the characters, with their intense charisma, delivered these powerful dialogues that have, in some way, cut to our core and left us a little different and more evolved than what we were before.

“Son, anybody can fill your stomach. But the food you eat should also fill your mind. That is the true gift.” 

Kareem (Thilakan), Ustad Hotel (2012)

Sometimes we get so used to what we are doing that we undermine the significance of it by just executing the actions and never really putting our heart into it. Sometimes we put a whole lot of brain and enough mind to the task we have set out to accomplish and end up forgetting to add ‘love’ into the mix. When Kareem says this to his grandson (Dulquer Salmaan) in the movie, we are reminded about putting our hearts into what we are doing as well.

“Food can be fed to another but cannot be chewed for them. Photography cannot be taught, but it can be learned.” 

Mahesh’s father (Antony Kochi), Maheshinte Prathikaram (2016)

Mahesh, a studio photographer, for whom photography is as mechanical as “chin up, shoulder down, chin down, chin podik up,” is amazed after he sees his father in action. The studio where he works, was handed down to him by his father, who is a magician when it comes to photography. Mahesh wants to be able to capture that same magic he once witnessed his father perform. It is then that his father tells him about how photography cannot be taught. There are some things in life which can be fed but if we need to adopt it, we have to embrace it by ourselves.

“Jesus isn’t someone we do not know, sister.”

Baby Mol (Anna Ben), Kumbalangi Nights (2019)

This simple innocent statement puts all the big talk around religion into an honest, child’s perspective. And like most naive answers, we are baffled and we find ourselves floundering, failing to come up with counter arguments. The religions that are different from ours, are indeed not that different from ours. The differences of each religion also diffuse so easily into the other that sometimes the lines are blurry, the boundaries are familiar and in the end, god from any religion is not someone we do not know.

“The only thing that stands between who you are and who you want to be is you.” 

Sara (Parvathy Thiruvothu), Bangalore Days (2014)

We’ve probably heard different versions of this quote but to hear it from Sara, even as a casual statement for her listeners on the radio, hit hard. There was no momentous silence before the dialogue was said, there was no background music to denote the grandeur of the quote, just casually uttered before the character ended a radio programme. We remember it in the cheery, breezy voice of Sara. Since then, it has always been this version of the quote, in that voice, that whispers strength and inspiration during a droopy day.

Sudani (Samuel Robinson), Sudani from Nigeria (2018)

Sudani from Nigeria was a tearjerker in so many ways. But this dialogue let us take a peek into a reality so grave and unbearably dire that the irony was heartbreaking. While for many football is a game, an indulgence, for some people far away from us, it is a means of survival. To them, football is a distraction, a distraction from hunger. We have never since the movie been able to look at football or other leisure activities the same way.

“I need to be me. Not the me that you want me to be, but the me that I want me to be.” 

Pallavi (Parvathy Thiruvothu), Uyare (2019)

When we live in a society that tries to push us into definitions and duties, we can only hope that movies become a harbinger of change. Sometimes all the hope and the strength that we can get, while being tortured by conventions, comes from a line like this in a movie. It reaffirms our faith in the struggle, had we wavered. It pushes us back onto our feet and reinstates our confidence. Dialogues like these leave our blood boiling, reminding us why we had begun the fight in the first place.

“Are you the villain or the hero in this movie?”

Krishnan (Dileesh Pothan), Guppy (2016)

We all are living a movie of our own. We become the heroes in our narrative. But sometimes, we get thrown off and are forced into a sharp turn in the plot that we wouldn’t even know which side we are on, anymore. We can’t be sure if we are the bad person or the good person in our own story. It’s good to pause and take a long look at the other characters and understand their motives and their alibis. It’s important that we introspect so that we do not end up on the wrong side of the story.

“If someone tells you that you are a disciplined and obedient child, don’t be happy. It’s a trap to encourage you to clip your wings to keep you from flying.”

Padmini (Manju Warrier), Rani Padmini (2015)

We have arrived at a time in history where we are raising our eyebrows at patriarchy and are tearing down gender roles. Society feels like the asphyxiating wad of bubblegum that we get stuck in by the accident of birth. The bubblegum is sticky, holding on to us in a tremendous effort to fold us inside its suffocating definitions and get us to ‘fit’. Some movies encourage and help us break free, de-entangle ourselves from the sticky mass and soar into the sky.

“It’s 2019, can’t beauty be defined differently? Isn’t it enough to have a brain and a heart to be beautiful?”

Vishal (Tovino Thomas), Uyare (2019)

Beauty for centuries has been defined in certain ways. The desired complexion, size and shape have already been set, written and are in display across every billboard and Instagram ad. The word has been reduced to a narrow perspective that standardises beauty and also makes a big business out of it. In the capitalistic, materialistic, consumeristic world that we live in, it’s always art that spills the truth.

“Do you remember you had asked me what I was doing, I had to answer at least now.”

Prakashan (Fahadh Faasil), Njan Prakashan (2018)

Not everyone picks up a shovel and starts digging immediately. Some find it hard to find a shovel, while others struggle to dig a hole. Some need to be told to look for the shovel. For others, it takes a shove to start looking for a shovel. In Njan Prakashan, all it took was a faint push from an acquaintance. And the best thing about those dialogues in such movies is that they nudge us to be better persons too.