Thalathil Dineshan, Prakashan, Appakkala, Sarojkumar; Sreenivasan's characters that were mocked; why did he create them then?

KOCHI: 'I am not at all handsome, doctor... I am dark-skinned, and my height is also very short...' Sreenivasan has marked many of us with this dialogue in the movie Vadakkunokkiyantram. Sreenivasan understood the world around him very well. That understanding helped him to stand alone in Malayalam cinema for 48 years with his own signature in the fields of writer, director and actor.

Most of the protagonists created by Sreenivasan in the writer's imagination were real people from our neighbourhoods. Gopalakrishna Panikkar (Sanmanassullavarkku Samadhanam), Ramdas (Nadodikkattu), Murali (Varavelpu), Prakashan (Sandesham), Sethumadhavan (Mithunam), Shankar Das (Azhakiya Ravanan) and Udayabhanu (Udayananu Tharam) are well-known to Malayalis.

Many of the supporting characters Sreenivasan created were caricatures. Damodar Ji (Thilakan), Pavanai (Captain Raju) and Gafur (Mamukkoya) made Malayalis laugh out loud, regardless of their generation. Sreenivasan, a writer, used laughter to make them think and to call out the nonsense around them.

The 'Sreeni touch' can be seen wherever he has played characters that any actor who is worried about his image would hesitate to take on. Appakkala (Thenmavin Kombath), Marutu (Oru Maravathoor Kanavu), Vijayan (Nadodikkattu), Sarojkumar (Udayananu Tharam), Vijayan (Chinthavishtayaya Shyamala), Thalathil Dineshan (Vadakkunokkiyantram), P.K. Gopalakrishnan (Pavam Paavam Rajakumaran)...

Sreenivasan was creating a proper address for people who were laughed at by others. Like Charlie Chaplin, Sreeni has left us, building a palace out of his own shortcomings.