Uyare brought Parvathy a lot of renewed recognition. She had, in 2017, already won her second Kerala State Award for Take Off, as well as a special mention at the National Awards. None of these roles looked anything alike. The bold nurse in Take Off turned into a widow dating again in Parvathy’s Hindi film with Irrfan Khan, Qarib Qarib Singlle. The quiet, abused woman in Koode turned into an aspiring pilot in Uyare, and to a hardworking medical officer in Virus.
In a few years, the Kasaba controversy died down, the last embers fading away as Mammootty and Parvathy came together to play siblings in a dark drama called Puzhu (2022). There would still be the occasional row that Parvathy was dragged into, like the skin colour for her character of Rachiyamma in the anthology Aanum Pennum. A fictional character from a story by Uroob, Rachiyamma was written as a dark-skinned woman, but Parvathy appeared in her paler skintone. She did not want to apply dark makeup after doing that for Poo, when she had just begun acting as an 18-year-old. She said in the wake of the Rachiyamma row that she would not play a real life character who is dark-skinned.
Parvathy has not explicitly declared political affiliations, but she has often commented on various discourses happening in the state. She said, after Take Off, that islamophobia existed in Kerala and she was aware that her own films could contribute to that narrative. In 2018, after the Supreme Court judgement allowing women’s entry to Sabarimala created a political storm in Kerala, Parvathy was among those who supported the verdict. During Uyare, speaking to TNM during an election season, Parvathy’s advice to young people was to listen, have conversations with friends, and participate in the process, not stay away from it.
Clarity is not always easy. It would seem Parvathy’s wobbly ride through her 20 years in cinema has given her that, and she no longer worries about every syllable that slips out of her, unlike many of her contemporaries. A clarity that allows her to pick her films wisely, take her mini breaks, speak her mind without a lot of censoring, continue her literary pursuits and journeys on the road, and live with her art.