India, Dec. 23 -- The Malayalam movie actor-director, Sreenivasan, who passed away at the age of 69, had become a legend in his own time. His filmography includes two directorial ventures, screenplays for 60 films, and acting roles, including as the lead, in more than 200 movies. These stats, however, are not what make Sreenivasan a unique and distinguishing figure in Malayalam movies. He once remarked that his contribution to Malayalam cinema is not what he has scripted or acted in but the 500 films he didn't do. This casual remark had an immediate effect, and it was then rehashed in different contexts, helping to create an impression of a witty sensibility. Several of the dialogues he wrote for the movies are used in different situations to give context to the banalities of everyday life and politics. These dialogues have come to occupy a significant part of the Malayali urban folklore and lingo. Take, for instance, his popular dialogue in the 1991 cult movie, Sandesham (Message), released in the backdrop of the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe: "Don't utter a word about Poland." The Communist Party cadre essayed by Sreenivasan in this movie aggressively delivers this while vehemently arguing politics with his sibling, who is affiliated with the Congress Party. Usually, over repetition leads it to become a cliche; nevertheless, this cliche has now assumed a cult status of a quasi-religious utterance that carries within it layers of meaning suitable to the context in which it is expressed. Similarly, dialogues from other movies for which he wrote screenplays and acted have been transformed into cult expressions. Each time election results are announced, and when the Communist Party loses, the explanation that it gives does not answer the simple question of why the party lost. Instead, the theoretically "complexified" explanations they offer go above the heads of the average worker and the public. However, it is insisted that the explanations given by the party intellectuals can never be questioned by an ordinary worker, even if they don't understand. Sandesham is still derided by the Communist Party activists as this movie satirically exposes the almost ritualistic and deceitful politics of both the Communist and Congress in Kerala. He strips the seriousness from the politics that the parties seem to pretend to, and it is narrated, making it highly convivial. Before Sandesham, the movies he penned for director Sathyan Anthikkad had ingeniously captured the changing middle-class Malayali life. Sreenivasan started his career in movies as an actor when he first acted in PA Bakker's 1976 movie Manimuzhakkam. He had by then completed a course in acting from the Adyar Film Institute, and one of his classmates was Rajnikanth. In the mid-eighties, Sreenivasan started writing screenplays. He wrote his first screenplay for Priyadarshan for the slapstick comedy Odaruthu Ammava Aalariyam (Don't Run Uncle, Everyone Knows Who That Is), in which he also played the role of an unemployed youth trying to make an impression on himself. In the subsequent movies written for Anthikkad, the theme of unemployed youth struggling to survive with all allied problems of poverty, starvation, and the desire to prove oneself is an important thread. Over time, many of his films became cult classics with a large following across generations, its scenes reappearing in reels and as memes. In the year 1986, two movies (TP Balagopalan MA and Gandhinagar Second Street) from the Sathyan Anthikkad and Sreenivasan duo became instant hits and still have huge viewership on YouTube. These movies deal with the internal schisms of the aspirational Malayali middle class who have lost their ties with their native village and are compelled to seek a new life in cities. They hardly have anything of their own, and they have to scheme a life from this nothingness. Implicit in his movie narrative was the reproval of the corrupt licence raj state that bulwarked against individualistic aspirations and entrepreneurship. In a sort of way, it welcomed economic liberalisation. This was at the high noon of leftist rhetoric in Kerala. His 2007 script, Katha Parayumbol, was made in Tamil as Kuselan with Rajnikanth and in Hindi as Billu with Shah Rukh Khan as leads. In the later part of his movie career, he focussed on the institutional degeneration in the film industry. Movies such as Udayananu Tharam (Udayan in the Star) and Sarojkumar, brought him accolades, but alienated him from the power group of the industry. The large crowd that turned up to bid him goodbye was the final acknowledgment of what Sreenivasan, who did not have the looks of a film star, meant to legions of Malayalis....