Actor Rima Kallingal has opened up about how she personally relates to the subject of perimenopause, describing it as a stage of life that she refuses to view through a lens of shame or apology. Her remarks, which have been circulating widely under the title "How I see perimenopause, this is how we are, and there is nothing wrong with it," place the often-whispered-about hormonal transition squarely in the public conversation at a time when Malayalam cinema is increasingly turning its attention to women's lived experiences beyond youth.
Kallingal, long known for choosing roles that challenge convention and for her outspoken presence in the industry, framed perimenopause not as a decline but as a natural passage that deserves the same candour society grants to other biological milestones. In her telling, the problem lies less with the changes themselves than with the silence that surrounds them, a silence she suggests has made an ordinary phase of life feel like something to hide.
Her statement arrives against a broader shift in the Malayalam film landscape, where actresses and filmmakers have begun pressing for stories that follow women past the ages traditionally considered bankable. Kallingal herself has been part of that push, both on screen and through her public advocacy, and her decision to speak plainly about perimenopause reads as a continuation of that work rather than an isolated comment.
What gives her remarks their weight is the specificity of the personal stake. Rather than offering a general observation about women's health, she ties the subject to her own perspective, making clear that this is not an abstract talking point but something she lives with and observes. That directness is characteristic of an actor who has rarely separated her professional choices from her convictions about how women are portrayed and treated.
For an industry that has only recently begun to acknowledge menopause and perimenopause as fit subjects for storytelling, her words carry practical implications. Producers and writers looking for material grounded in real experience now have a prominent voice insisting that such stories are neither niche nor depressing, but simply true to the lives of a large portion of the audience. The phrasing she uses, that this is how they are and there is nothing wrong with it, functions as both a personal declaration and an implicit challenge to the default assumptions of the mainstream.
It remains to be seen whether her comments translate into concrete projects, but the pattern in recent Malayalam cinema suggests they might. Films centred on women in their forties and beyond have found receptive audiences, and actresses of Kallingal's generation have increasingly moved into production and creative decision-making roles. A public figure naming perimenopause without euphemism removes one more barrier for anyone pitching a script that takes the subject seriously.
Her intervention also lands within a wider cultural conversation in Kerala about ageing, health and gender, where public discussion of women's bodies has historically been constrained by deference and discretion. By speaking in the first person and refusing a tone of apology, Kallingal shifts the register from medical caution to everyday acknowledgement. The title under which her remarks have travelled captures that stance precisely: this is how she sees it, this is how they are, and no fault should be attached to either.
Whether or not it becomes the seed of a film, the statement reinforces Kallingal's position as one of Malayalam cinema's more deliberate voices on questions of representation. She has built a career on refusing the narrow templates offered to women on screen, and her willingness to extend that refusal into the arena of hormonal health is consistent with everything that has come before it. For audiences and industry colleagues alike, the message is unambiguous: perimenopause is not a subject to be managed quietly, but one to be named, discussed and, in time, dramatised.
Source: Filmibeat Malayalam