Trivandrum Lodge 2012

Set around Trivandrum Lodge, a modest residence in Kochi, the film follows Abdu [Babu Namboothiri], a man who does odd jobs for a living—from a spa masseur to the driver of a wealthy businessman—and who is driven by a near-constant hunger. He lives among a constellation of inmates whose desires, memories, and disappointments ripple through the faded walls of the lodge. Shibu Vellayani [Saiju Kurup], a cinema reporter for a small film magazine, uses his position to coax women into bed for roles, weaving himself into the lives of those around him with a mix of charm and calculation. Kora [P Balachandran], a retired clerk from the secretariat, loves to boast about his lay history, claiming to have slept with 999 women and setting his sights on a 1000th—ideally a policewoman. Satheeshan dreams of stardom, and Shibu even gives him a new name, Sagar, hinting at the easy reinvention that life inside the lodge sometimes requires. Arthur Relton and Peggy Aunty are the oldest residents; Relton teaches piano and dwells in a world of music, while Peggy Aunty runs a canteen inside the lodge, serving up sustenance and stories in equal measure.

The lodge’s owner is Ravisankar [Jayasurya], a rich widower whose wealth stems from his mother’s connections with powerful men, a fact that casts a long shadow over his relationship with his son and his own past. His father Narayanan Nair [P. Jayachandran] moved away years earlier and now runs a small hotel far from the glitz of Ravi’s world, a quiet contrast that underscores the family’s fractured history.

Dhwani [Honey Rose] enters this fragile ecosystem as a divorced woman who wants freedom, good food, and, as she herself proclaims, > “fornicate with abandon.” She comes to stay at Trivandrum Lodge with the intention of writing a novel set against Kochi, but her presence unsettles the sexually repressed souls who inhabit the place. In a striking arrangement, she pays Abdu to pose as her lover in a hotel room to deter her husband from insisting she return to him, a decision that deepens the bonds and tensions that already churn in the lodge’s corridors.

The film also threads through the adolescent romance between Arjun and his classmate Amala, a younger counterpoint to the adult dramas playing out around them. It charts the unconditional romance between Ravisankar and his wife Malavika, who is not alive to share it, casting a poignant glow over Ravi’s life and choices. Dhwani becomes fascinated by Ravi’s stubborn loyalty to one woman even after her death, a fascination that sits beside the story of Relton and Peggy—two older souls whose own relationship carries its own quiet ache.

In this mosaic of desire, memory, and quiet heartbreak, Trivandrum Lodge becomes a microcosm where longing, aging, and humanity collide, revealing how the past continually informs present choices and how the smallest acts of affection can ripple through a crowded, imperfect home.