"Do you eat mangoes?”
Back in 2019, at the height of a feverish election season, actor Akshay Kumar opened his ‘daring’ interview with Prime Minister Narendra Modi with that question. The opposition laughed, commentators despaired over the intellectual nutritional value of Bollywood journalism, and the interview was promptly labelled “apolitical”.
But those who used that label missed the point: for Modi, nothing is apolitical. The conversation allowed him to make calibrated political statements while never confronting a politically uncomfortable question.
Akshay Kumar, the interviewer, became the channel through which the smiling face of a stern administrator was presented; at no point did the Prime Minister feel compelled to sip a cup of water and end the interview abruptly.
Political opponents of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan often compare him to PM Modi. “Mundudutha Modi”—or “Modi who wears a mundu”—is a moniker his critics have given him. Though CM Vijayan and PM Modi belong to diametrically opposite ideological camps, certain actions have been interpreted as Vijayan drawing from Modi’s playbook.
The latest example is Vijayan’s interview with superstar Mohanlal ahead of the fast-approaching Assembly election. Mohanlal is Kerala’s most influential cultural icon, and any content featuring him tends to go viral.
From the teaser, the conversation appears designed to explore a softer, lighter side of the Chief Minister, who is aiming for a third term. Reportedly, Mohanlal agreed after a special request from the CM to serve as the interviewer. The interview was conducted in strict secrecy, with the CMO remaining tight-lipped until the teaser’s release. Mohanlal reportedly devoted two days to the project—the first to discuss the topics and the second for filming. National Award-winning filmmaker T.K. Rajeev Kumar directed the interview.
It is clear that the CM pushed for such an interview, bringing the most popular man on screen along with him, understanding how “soft” interviews have evolved into a convenient yet powerful tool for politicians worldwide to manage their public image. Politicians, it seems, are increasingly comfortable being “apolitically political” in their conversations to manage that image.
Nevertheless, the issue is not that politicians prefer comfortable interviews. Power has always preferred comfort.
The more revealing question is not about the politicians—it is about us, the ordinary citizens. The real question is whether society still prefers discomfort—the kind that comes from difficult questions, inconvenient facts, and unscripted answers. Because the day the public stops demanding those, the interview stops being a conversation with power and becomes a mere reel performance!