Jester who didn't hold back

A beloved bird has left the branch of our cinema tree forever. The sweet sounds of that bird created laughter in the cinema and in our lives. When Sreenivasan, who became the jester of the times by occasionally howling at himself and loudly howling against the hypocrisy of society, becomes just a memory, it becomes a loss of an era. Sreenivasan's passing is like the pain of a piece of glass that has been held against the truth falling and shattering, not only for the film industry but also for our social scene. In a film industry where there are a handful of people who speak falsehoods for their own survival and gain, Sreenivasan was an artist who achieved success without any of that, relying solely on his own talent and creative imagination.

Sreenivasan's acting and dialogues often remind one of the wise jester of an emperor's court. The jester would lose his head if he told the king an unpleasant truth in his face, but if he presented the same truth with the grace of comedy, even the king would laugh. There is no other artist in cinema who has so sharply mocked our two big superstars, Mammootty and Mohanlal, through dialogues created based on the context of the film's storyline. Sreenivasan himself openly said that the dialogue spoken by superstar Saroj Kumar in 'Udayananu Tharam' was written with Mammootty in mind!

In the same film, the character Pachalam Bhasi calculates how many Malayalis in the Gulf would buy the porota and pappadum marketed by the superstar. Although Sreenivasan did not say that he was referring to a producer who only makes films of another superstar, everyone in the film industry knows it. In reality, Sreenivasan was not criticising the position of Mammootty and Mohanlal as actors. He was criticising the fact that they themselves became prisoners of the image they had created! Both of them are also the actors who created the biggest conditions for Sreenivasan's growth. It was Sreenivasan, who had collaborated on the script of K.G. George's film 'Mela', who suggested Mammootty, a newcomer, for the role of a bike rider in the movie!

Sreenivasan had planned to exchange only red garlands for his wedding. This was because he did not have the money to buy a thali, not because he was against the ceremony. However, Sreenivasan's mother insisted that the bride should have a thali for the wedding. It was Mammootty who gave the two thousand rupees to buy it. No one can forget the role that the films directed by Priyadarshan and Sathyan Anthikad, written by Sreenivasan, played in placing Mohanlal into the souls of the Malayalis. Mohanlal began his journey to great heights with films like Vellanakalude Nadu and Nadodikkattu, which were scripted by Sreenivasan.

Sreenivasan was also the screenwriter who perhaps initiated the end of the old ways of laughter in cinema. Laughter through creating situations and laughter through dialogue were equally a part of Sreenivasan's birth instinct. The laughter created by the road roller and the elephant in 'Vellanakalude Nadu' is a classic. The character Thalathil Dineshan, who stays in a lodge to secretly monitor his wife, when he comes home at night and realises that he has accidentally hit his wife's father on the head, asks without any change of expression, 'When did you come, uncle? Is aunty well at home?' Who else but Sreenivasan could ask this? Sreenivasan created laughter that came from deep within, rooted in human conflicts, sorrows, and the uncertainties of life situations.

In Sreenivasan's own words, the essence of humour was very strong throughout his life. Sreenivasan has opened up about a joke he told his own mother. When Sreenivasan's mother was old, she came to stay at his house in Madras for a few days. Every day, when she picked up the newspaper, she would read the obituary page first. She would check to see if anyone she knew had passed away. Sreenivasan, who used to watch this every day, asked his mother: "Is it enough to just keep reading that page like this? Don't you want your picture also to come like this?" Hearing Sreenivasan's dialogue, his mother also burst out laughing. Pure comedy is when the humour makes the person being criticised or praised also laugh. That was the trump card that Sreenivasan used in his films.

When evaluating Sreenivasan's contributions to Malayalam cinema, the two women-centric films he directed, 'Vadakkunokkiyantram' and 'Chinthavishtayaya Shyamala', stand out the most. Today, we cannot imagine any other actor other than Sreenivasan as the lead character in those films. We have very few artists who have displayed such creativity in acting, writing, and directing. The painful void created by his departure is therefore immense.

The Sathyan Anthikad-Sreenivasan partnership has produced a handful of films that have made a mark in the minds of Malayalis. Similarly, the closeness to Priyadarshan is what gave birth to the scriptwriter in Sreenivasan. 'Sandesham' is a film that stands out from all the other films written by Sreenivasan and is still relevant today. Even after all these years, the meaningless and absurd dramas of politics that 'Sandesham' spoke continue to attract a large audience. Sreenivasan, who received training in acting from the Madras Film Institute, entered the film industry in 1977 through P.A. Bakkar's 'Manimuzhakkam'. Sreenivasan, who left us at the age of sixty-nine, was a part of the film industry for 48 years, being part of small and big films. We share the deep sorrow of the family members and friends at the demise of Sreenivasan, who had a friendship with 'Kerala Kaumudi'. May that star that died in December rest in eternal peace.