Srinivasan - Nanma Niranjavan Srinivasan

Dec. 21, 2025

Srinivasan, the multifaceted artist who found his indisplaceable place in the hearts of Malayalis departs this earthly abode, after 69 years of sojourn here. Though I have no claim to be an avid movie buff, nor a critical one, I too cherished his movies that brought before viewers all the shades of a Malayali’s thinking and living in a very realistic and humorous manner, based on self-reflection bordering on self-critique. I was listening to the way in which this genius and his contributions were being assessed and analysed, with all having only good things to say about him.

He is so familiar to me - as if he were of my friendship circle or neighbourhood. However, I am afraid I have never met him or seen him directly.  When I realise that, I feel surprised. 

I am glad to learn that he had come to this stature through hard work and hard times. That he had equipped himself for a career in cinema by gaining a diploma from the famed Adayar Film Institute, after his undergraduate programme, comforts me. And that his genius for storytelling was kind of forced out of him by circumstances is also a matter of inspiration - that he ventured into writing a script and a screenplay for the first time, being forced by the famed director Priyadarshan, with the hope of gaining a role in the movie. 

I found that 3 movies in which he plays the lead role close to my heart – not exactly because of their cinematic quality, but because of the effort to bring certain issues very close to my heart through the medium. Generally, they don’t get listed among his top movies.

Nagaravaridhi Naduvil Njaan – 2014 movie directed by Shibu Balan, scripted by Srinivasan and Srinivasan himself playing the lead role of a victim landowner in the city, where his prime plot of land is turned into a waste dump and his struggle to get that disposed for meeting his urgent financial needs.  While the plot itself did not win great appreciation, with the solution arrived at carrying no conviction, the movie brings into the picture the issue of municipal solid waste management rather well, and touches upon the important responsibility of food production. 

Another Srinivasan movie which appeals to me is Passenger – 2009. This is not his script.  He plays the lead role of a public-spirited commoner getting involved in a socio-political issue by chance, trying his level best save a change maker, who falls into the hands of gangsters deployed by a criminal syndicate planning to displace people for financial gains, whose crime he was likely to bring to light. The very self-effacing character who seeks no fame or gain other than accomplishing the opportunity for goodness that is placed before his eyes is Sathyanathan. As he himself revealed on various occasions, that was his religion, and if there is a God for him, that was revealed in and through this sort of goodness.

Traffic, the 2011 movie, presents Srinivasan as Sudevan, a traffic police constable suspended for bribery, who on his reinstatement, takes up the task of a challenging drive carrying the heart of an accident victim from Kochi to Palakkad in a very limited time through the rush-hour traffic. The Srinivasan character accomplishes the feat, overcoming the unforeseeable challenges that emerge on the way, and regains his lost self-esteem and esteem before his own family. This also appeals to my heart for the twin themes presented in it: (1) of organ donation – in this case, cadaver transplantation and (2) the possibility of self-improvement by seizing opportunities and taking risk. The movie has certain segments of narration, which is also done by Srinivasan.

In the last decade or more of his life, which he lived from his house at Kandanad, this visionary Malayalee tried to set before the rest of us the importance of soil and safe and healthy food production.  He practised organic farming and promoted it.  My good friend, agricultural officer Mr Philipji was his advisor for this. Our Kochi-based platform to promote organic farming (Organic Kerala Charitable Trust) tried to get him to our annual organic festival twice, without success.

I salute this great Malayalee, who passed away, winning admiration and adulation from across the various sections of our Malayalee population, including those whom he has criticised through his satire coated in humour.  He passes away as ‘nanma niranjavan Srinivasan’, challenging us believers and non-believers to fill our lives with goodness towards people and planet and to deflate our bloated egos by laughing at our own puny selves.