When the entire nation and most parts of the world went into lockdown, people immediately had a lot of spare time in hand. The case was no different for Adarsh H S, a third-year BA Political Science student at the University College Thiruvananthapuram, and his debater friends. But unlike many, this lot thought of creating something productive using the extra time.
On April 5, when the entire country switched off their lights and lit candles to 'dispel the darkness' at 9pm, these students launched a YouTube channel called 'The Argumentative Mallu'. They upload explainer videos on contemporary and socially relevant topics quite regularly to their channel. "We are currently creating videos that help in developing scientific temper and critical thinking skills among young people. All the videos are backed by facts," says Adarsh.
"All of us who work for this channel are students from colleges across Kerala. We have met over the years at various debate competitions. We badly wanted to start a YouTube channel and thought that this is the best time to do so," he says. The others involved with the channel are Arjun S Nair and Aparna Nambi from University College Thiruvananthapuram, Manu Ramesh from Anna University, Hariskrishnan R S from Government College Kariavattom, Akash S S from SCT College of Engineering, Siddharth Joy from Institute of English, Thiruvananathapuram, Gopika Krishnan from TKM College of Engineering, Kollam, Hiba V from Mar Ivanios College, Thiruvananthapuram, Adoney John from Maharajas Colege, Ernakulam and Akhil D Varghese from Bishop Moore College, Mavelikkara.
The channel's first video was on the impact of COVID-19 on the environment and was shared by the Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor on Facebook and Twitter. "Tharoor was quite excited to know that we are from his constituency and immediately agreed to share our video. Also, he is interested in these topics," says Adarsh. "We have released three videos and all of them are in Malayalam. But after Tharoor shared the video, we've been asked to add subtitles, to cater to a larger group of people. We made it a point to add subtitles in the next videos," he says.
Adarsh admits that the channel right now has its own limitations, given that nobody gets to meet each other. "We discuss the topics on our telegram group and let people with equipment shoot it. We then share it with the editor, who edits and uploads it on YouTube. We now aim to release a video a week," he says.
The channel's latest video titled 'A gay who saved 14 million people' talks about mathematician Alan Turing. It had gone viral since. "The video was conceptualised by its presenter Harikrishnan, who studies Physics. This was related to his subject, which made research easy," says Adarsh. He also goes on to explain the channel's expansion plans, post lockdown. "We plan to upload debate videos explaining both sides of issues. This wouldn't be difficult, considering we are all debaters. We also plan to interview politicians and authors soon," he says.
