New Delhi, Dec. 20 -- Malayalam cinema has lost one of its most popular names on Saturday with the death of Sreenivasan. He was an actor, writer, and director whose work taught audiences how to laugh at themselves. He was 69 years old. His death at a government taluk hospital in Thripunithura closed a career that stretched nearly five decades and refused to settle for comfort or easy applause.

Sreenivasan acted in more than 200 films, but numbers never captured his importance. He was not just performing characters. He was documenting a class, a mindset, and a political temperament that defined Kerala's everyday life.

Born in 1956 near Kuthuparamba in Kannur district, Sreenivasan grew up in a household shaped by ideology and discipline. ...