Shadow Of Southern India

Sharing Personal Holiday Travels Around Kerala Has Never Looked More Universally Appealing

In this charming escapade across the lush landscape of Southern India, film maker Manoj Rai entreats us to project that straddles travelogue, video diary and impeccable editorial. Staying in Kerala to attend a friend’s wedding, Manoj and his friend took another week to travel around places like Varkala, Kovalam, Kanyakumari & Rameswaram and make some unforgettable footage, encapsulated in the final Shadow of Southern India.

The excitement of Manoj and his friend is conveyed so acutely in the video that it’s impossible not to warm to its easy and endearing vibe. Train journeys across amazing green hills, vibrant parrots, big hearty smiles and timelapse footage of a land portrayed idyllically tells us that his adventure was full of bright memories. As such, this is no ordinary holiday video. Many holiday videos mean nothing to outsider eyes, but the warmth and gentleness that cuts through Shadow of Southern India is of universal appeal, and it’s a privilege that Manoj wishes to share a slice of it with his Vimeo audience.

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Mesmerising idyllic environs, lush green grooves of coconut, pulsating cultural vibe and eye snatching scenery is all I loved to core which made me visit once more to other places to explore few more destinations which were left earlier.

At the same time, Manoj is no fool. As his title suggests, his jaunt across India’s beautiful southern region, and his cinematographic representation, is but a shadow. The delicate footage and evocative music gives us only a small impression, and we can only hope to visit there ourselves in order to taste the colours and flavours of southern India fully.

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It was a privilege to catch up with Manoj for some more detail from his journey:

The Plus: What’s the story behind your interest in cinematography?
Manoj Rai:
I love to weave stories through capturing moments, expressions of people. The whole story of speaking through light and shadow, creating mood and touching emotions began my path of becoming visual story teller.

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TP: Is this the first time you’ve made a video travelogue of Southern India? What made you decide to pursue it?
MR:
I have already made one travelogue video on ooty which is also part of south India but in this video shadow of southern India I have covered many other destinations of southern India which includes majestic view & serene beauty of places. Beauty of place gave me call to make another video after ooty.

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TP: Are the idyllic and peaceful sensations of the video reflective of your own experiences of Southern India?
MR:
Well this is true these are my personal experience but I can assure anybody who have ever visited southern India would definitely have same experience. South Indian beaches are true synonym of extreme nature’s beauty or simply you can say serenity can be best explained by visiting southern India.

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TP: Which images did you choose to cut?
MR:
I want to showcase the spellbound beauty of southern India so I have chosen the images which could do justice with winsome nature of the place
• Rameswaram which is the closest point to reach Sri Lanka and geological evidence suggests that the Rama Setu (part of Ramayana) was a former land connection between India and Sri Lanka.
• Back waters
• Alluring sand beaches
• Expressions of people
• Lush green coconut grooves
• Pamban bridge
• Kanyakumari (popularly known as Tip of India) Surrounded by Majestic Hills and the plains bordered by colourful sea-shores, fringed with coconut trees with few elevated patches of red cliffs elevated with undulating valleys and plains between the mountainous terrain and the sea coast.

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TP: What’s the reason behind entering into time-lapse half way through the video?
MR:
The decision of entering the time lapse half way is to give movement in the frame where everything was so stagnant & in order to attract audience towards the beauty and scale of place it was the demand of video for captivating the attention.

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