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Many are the names that come to my mind when I think of people who have made us feel proud of being Malayalees. From Adi Shankaran to Vallathol, from V.K.Krishna Menon to K.R.Narayanan, from Vaikkom Muhammed Basheer and Thakazhy and MT to Madhavikutty (aka Kamala Suraiyya) and T.Padmanabhan, from Bharath Gopi and Kottarakara Sreedharan Nair to Mammootty and Mohanlal, from P.T.Usha and Shiny Wilson to I.M.Vijayan- the list may go on and on and on. I of course know it very well that at a time when Malayalam and our culture has become more of a fashion and is delivered in capsules like the abridged version of ‘Kathakali’ made ready for tourists and the traditional Kerala attire being thought about and worn only on some particular days of the month or the year (while on the other days we think and live and eat and talk like others), the reference to these ‘people who made us proud’ may not have much takers.

On a personal level I feel proud to have been born in Kerala, the land that gave birth to these stalwarts and of course many more, one of them being P.Padmarajan, the ‘gandharvan’ among filmmakers who bid adieu to this world nineteen years ago, on January 24, 1991. Being someone who is passionate about films and equally in love with literature, I see Padmarajan as sort of an icon. He is one of those two filmmakers whom I adore the most, among Indian filmmakers (the other being Satyajit Ray) and he is a writer who has impressed me with his versatility, simplicity and depth. Hence when my colleague Shyama suggested to me to write a tribute on him, I did readily agree. Padmarajan is part of me and my being, as much as is he to many of my age-group and generation.

Of course I wouldn’t write too much on Padmarajan and his films and writings. It’s all well known to people who like them all, and to people who’d like to know them all, there are lots being written in the papers and the many portals. To those who don’t care about such things, I don’t feel like saying anything at all.

The new generation (classified not just on the basis of age, but also on the basis of interests and passions) in Kerala, who are mad after big money, high end cell phones, bikes, booze et al and who don’t have the time to care for things like literature, arts, films etc are now after stars and films that boast of ‘six pack abs’ and the Hollywood-like stunts and Bollywood like songs and dances. For them the man who wrote umpteen brilliant short stories in Malayalam and who also penned the script for some of the most memorable of Malayalam movies may not mean much. For them names like ‘Oridathoru Phayalwan’, ‘Kallan Pavithran’, ‘Peruvazhiyambalam’, ‘Moonnaam Pakkam’, ‘Nombarathipoovu’, ‘Arapattakettiya Graamathil’, ‘Thoovanathumbikal’, ‘Namukku Paarkkaan Munthirithoppukal’, ‘Innale’, ‘Njaan Gandharvan’ and all may not feature among their list of the best of Malayalam films.

But for me, Padmarajan is simply one of the best that we have had in Malayalam Cinema, a man who went beyond the classifications of art-house and commercial cinema and who successfully merged all these different strands of cinema and who gave a well edited action flick too in ‘Season’, a film that can teach many a lesson to those who still stumble at making action films.

Sitting at my desk at the Karma Kerala office at Chettichira in Cochin, I can see the road where ply many a cars and bikes and buses, to and from Cochin (for some of us Kochi), the city that’s attaining the proportions of a metropolis in many ways. I see people, the new generation buyers who detest going to the local grocers, coming out of a near-by supermarket with smiling faces on having done a high-end kind of marketing. I see a shop that sells frozen meat and frozen fish to people in a State where you still get to buy fresh fish directly from the fisherman’s nets. Seeing all this on this sunny day, I wonder as to how many of the people in the State stop to think about Padmarajan. How many of our filmmakers have got the time to stop and think about the man who contributed greatly to the making of Malayalam Cinema and also towards the making of many of the popular stars whom we know today?!

Well, I’d love to spend a few moments relishing memories of the many Padmarajan movies that had made me so passionate about films. The late KPAC Azeez jumping out of the boat all determined to take revenge on the man who had been a witness to his crimes (‘Peruvazhiyambalam‘), the poor desperate grandfather (played by Thilakan) who is all shattered after his young grandson had gone missing in the sea (‘Moonnaam Pakkam‘), the young Jayaram in ‘Innale‘ who wishes and prays earnestly that his new-found lover (played by Shobhana), who has been suffering from Amnesia, doesn’t get back her memories and recognise her husband (played by Suresh Gopi), the village wrestler (played by Rasheed) who is rather indifferent towards his wife and her needs (‘Oridathoru Phayalwan‘) – these and many other scenes from Padmarajan films just scroll on and on in my memory while I hear my heart sob and pay heartfelt tributes to the ‘Gandharvan’ who left us nineteen years ago, an untimely death that shattered us all to a great extent. I know that some of our scribes will be getting ready with write-ups and memoirs for tomorrow and some of our papers may devote some space for the versatile writer-filmmaker. Well, this is my personal tribute to Padmarajan, the man who made me love films, the man who made me love myself and have a passion for life.

Thanks Shyama, for making me come out with something personal about a man who means much to me and to many film-lovers in Kerala.