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Humans, Animals & Nature: The Interwoven Tapestry Of Bahul Ramesh

Across Bahul Ramesh's work, nature is never just a backdrop; it becomes a mirror, a witness, and sometimes an accomplice to human desire, guilt, and survival.

Neelima+Menon

Jan 29, 2026

Promo poster for Eko.

MUCH HAS BEEN SAID about Bahul Ramesh’s growing preoccupation with the human–animal bond, a theme that has steadily taken centre stage in his recent work. Though Kishkindha Kaandam borrows its title from the monkey kingdom in Ramayana in the film, the monkeys themselves drift in and out of the frame without carrying much narrative weight.

But in Kerala Crime Files Season 2 and Eko Bahul’s interest sharpens into something more specific, his fascination with canines and the emotional ecosystems that form between dogs and humans. These works move beyond metaphor and into a space where animals become mirrors, absorbing and reflecting the vulnerabilities, wounds, and contradictions of the people around them. The bonds he explores are not sentimental or surface-level; they are tangled, unsettling, and at times deeply revealing. In these narratives, dogs are not passive presences but active extensions of human psychology — witnesses, companions, enforcers, and, at times, victims of their handlers’ inner turmoil.

At the heart of Dinjith Ayyathan’s Eko written and shot by Bahul Ramesh, stands Mlathi Chedathi (Biana Momin), an elderly woman tucked away in a modest home perched on a hill. There is a Man Friday (Sandeep Pradeep) to help, along with a pack of fierce dogs holding fort. To the villagers below, she is someone they whisper about, with stories built from gossip and half-truths, mostly about her missing husband, Kuriachan.

ALSO READ | Eko: Bahul Ramesh on how he ‘sacrificed’ a story to build his Animal trilogy

As the title suggests, Eko: From the Infinite Chronicles of Kuriachan pieces together the myth and menace surrounding a man whose disappearance leaves behind a trail of enduring destruction. He seems to have unsettled, manipulated, and fractured the lives of many. And they are carrying that hurt like an open wound, resentment brewing quietly, as they move through the story with a shared hunger for answers, closure, and perhaps revenge.

And yet, in the midst of this chaos stands Mlathi Chedathi, quiet, self-contained and almost stoic. For this Malaysian immigrant who has long ceased to expect warmth from those around her, she seems to have found peace with her imposed solitude. Her husband is missing, her children have drifted away, and the world she inhabits feels suspended between abandonment and resilience. In Eko Mlathi’s ferocious dogs are loaded symbols of protection, defiance, loyalty, fear, and ultimately, subjugation. They become an emotional language through which Mlathi Chedathi’s life is decoded.

During the Malaysian flashback, when Mlathi’s ex-husband equates a woman’s desire to a female dog’s fertility, it reveals how deeply he had trivialised her inner life, snatching away her emotional and sexual agency. The younger Mlathi is mostly left alone in their cottage, surrounded by a pack of dogs that are trained by her husband to “protect” her. But it becomes clear that the animals are trained to make sure her life revolves around his rules, even when he isn’t around.

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Ironically, this pattern is there throughout her relationship with Kuriachan as well. So, the dogs have been trained by Kuriachan to follow his instructions and not really to protect her, and they are positioned to police the boundaries of her world. Therefore, in Eko the dogs symbolise a woman’s long, suffocating entanglement with a man who has always masked possession as tenderness and care. It is through them that the film articulates the subtle and overt ways in which protection can become imprisonment, and how loyalty, when weaponised, can become a silent form of violence.

If you haven't watched Eko yet, should you watch Kerala Crime Files and Kishkindha Kaandam to complete Bahul Ramesh's Animal trilogy? Read here to know more.

It’s this contrast, between a community bursting with rage and a woman who meets life’s uncertainties with a strangely serene certainty that gives Eko its emotional pulse. Mlathi Chedathi isn’t just a character; she becomes the stillness that throws the chaos into sharp relief, the unfortunate witness to a story built on the echoes of one man’s actions and the many lives he has unsettled.

In Kerala Crime Files Season 2 Bahul takes us into the world of police dogs, an arena largely unexplored on screen, especially the emotionally fraught and often unsettling bonds they share with their handlers. Since we usually see police dogs only as functional extensions of the force, it’s both poignant and disquieting to witness how layered these relationships actually are. One standout subplot ties a man’s abandoned, loveless childhood to his obsessive attachment to a police training dog. It’s haunting to watch his unprocessed trauma spill into the controlled affection the animal is trained to offer.

Psst...Kerala Crime Files season 2 is available here on JioHotstar via OTTplay. Watch the show if you haven't already.

The narrative also prompts us to reflect on the dual realities of these dogs: being both victims and agents. In reality, they are silently absorbing the emotional residues of their handlers while being deployed into the murky terrain of crime, violence, and conscience. It is this thematic layering of human vulnerability and cruelty mirrored through the canine gaze that gives the show an unexpected emotional depth. Having said that, Bahul doesn’t quite get it when he tries to replicate this complexity in the protagonist’s odd detachment from his wife’s pet dog. This thread, which is treated as a recurring motif, feels puzzling and underdeveloped.

In Kishkindha Kaandam the central character lives amid a lush, almost impenetrable greenery that also reflects the writer’s enduring fascination with the boundless and mysterious aspects of nature. This resonates in Eko as well. Though the monkeys in the trees might seem like a decorative touch, Bahul uses them to reflect the protagonist’s helplessness, echoing the three wise monkeys who see no evil, speak no evil, and hear no evil. And this symbolism becomes even more striking when we realise that the characters’ hidden fears and secrets mirror it, and how their silence and wilful blindness maintain the household’s fragile balance. Appu Pillai’s (Vijayaraghavan) dementia adds another layer of complexity, as he carefully shields his son (Asif Ali) from harsh truths, choosing instead to bear the burden of unspoken realities alone. If Ajayan is torn between gratitude and guilt, his new bride assumes the role of an investigative presence, determined to unravel the family’s hidden tensions. Together, these dynamics turn the household into a small world of secrets and memories, where hidden meanings shape the story and deepen its emotional impact.

Kishkindha Kaandam is currently streaming on JioHotstar, now available with your OTTplay Premium subscription. Watch the film here.