Rohin Raveendran’s 'Kovarty' Is A Whimsical Love Story Between A Typewriter & A Typist

"Do you think I’ve lost it?" Daisy asks Boatman Vasu, while he sits as a silent supporter of love, as she takes the typewriter on a float around town.

I remember the first time I heard of a typewriter; my mother’s first job–she was a typist. As a child, there was this whimsy around a typewriter that I felt every time I heard about this object. Rohin Raveendran Nair’s 'Kovarty captures' this feeling exactly — maybe not the object bit.

Filmed on iPhone, the MAMI-select short film is a tale of love between a typewriter and its typist. The typewriter, named Qwerty, arrives at Thozhuthilmukku, Kerala, on a boat, given a comfortable seat that even the town sexton didn’t receive. Daisy, played ever-so-softly by Rajisha Vijayan, names the typewriter Qwerty, for the town priest can’t accept its caste name, typewriter, to be the name. It is in fact the whole village that's in love with this new, shiny, object in town, for it has changed their lives. It has witnessed the first inter-faith marriage and many births and deaths. It brought to the backwaters with its arrival, revolution. 

Growing in her career, Daisy is soon the dearest girl of the town. It’s impossible for anyone to not love Daisy, including Qwerty. What begins as a professional relationship, has become much more than that when Qwerty draws a portrait of Daisy.

Qwerty now has an unbearably silent emotional conscience, that even the wall clock in the room can’t help but tease. We see Qwerty’s emotions in monochrome, as Daisy and Qwerty find themselves and each other.

Daisy already in the midst of heartbreak realizes that man or machine, honest love must be reciprocated. Meanwhile, the village church sexton, Chacko, who secretly adores Daisy learns this, leading to serious damage to Qwerty.

The film, subtly narrates the tale of a woman finding her identity. In a later scene, Daisy confesses to Qwerty how the arrival of the typewriter made her somebody. 

Kovarty excels at creating an image of the typewriter as a being beyond an object. We start viewing Qwerty as a hopeless romantic. By no means is the film unbelievably optimistic. It’s just the right amount of acknowledging change and reality without being too cynical. Kovarty is the story of a woman chiseling her identity and making it her own. 

Shot by Swapnil S. Sonawane and Sunil Borkar, who hero the lovely backwaters of Kavalam, the camera becomes invisible. We bear witness to the most vulnerable moments of the characters on screen. The film, you can tell, has loved its filmmaker just as much as Qwerty loved Daisy. Qwerty is the solace that humans never were for Daisy. In this way, it subtly suggests that your art can also be be the solace that humans so often aren't. 

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