A comeback dream that was not meant to be...
KOCHI: Sathyan Anthikad had spent the entire Saturday morning with the grieving family. Sitting next to the mortal remains, while the public paid homage, he broke down, as fellow mourners struggled to console the filmmaker. For Anthikad, Sreenivasans demise was a personal loss. He had lost one of his closest friends. We shared a close bond. I used to visit him every two weeks to rejuvenate him. He had been suffering from various ailments for several months. But I never thought he would leave us, Anthikad told reporters. His brain remained sharp... and he was aware of everything. Recently, he told me he felt exhausted. But I reassured him that it was just a phase, and that we would make a comeback... Anthikad did not complete the sentence as he walked away with tears in his eyes. The two first collaborated on Gandhinagar 2nd Street , which was released in 1986. Sreenivasan wrote the screenplay and also played the role of Madhavan. Most of the films the duo came up with, including Nadodikkattu (1987), Varavelpu (1989), Thalayanamanthram (1990), and Sandesam (1991), were hits. These were not merely comedies but flicks that portrayed the lives of common people. In interactions with media, they both spoke about how Sandesam was received by audiences and about the anonymous letters they used to receive. Sreenivasan exposed pretensions of Malayalis through his satirical movies Anthikad trusted Sreenivasan, who was permitted to write dialogues and screenplays even on film sets. When Sreeni and I work on scripts, it makes my job easier, Anthikad had recalled earlier. The friendship grew, appreciating, criticising and correcting each other. In 2018, they came up with their last film together, Njan Prakashan , with Fahadh Faasil, which was another hit. The other films that were the result of the collaboration are: Sanmanassullavarkku Samadhanam (1986), T P Balagopalan M.A. (1986), Sreedharante Onnam Thirumurivu (1987), and Golanthara Vartha (1993). As years passed, Sreenivasan expressed his wish to do another film with Anthikad and Mohanlal. A project was even in the pipeline. That dream, as it turned out, will remain just that.
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