Industry ignore Thilakan even on his death

Legendary actor Thilakan who died on Sep 24 was almost always having an unpleasant relationship with many actors and technicians from the Malayalam film industry. And he never tried to hide his feelings though it always landed him in trouble. The all powerful film organisations had banned the versatile genius from acting in films for quite some years.

If everyone had imagined that it all will end with his death, the film fraternity’s behavior was rather baffling, to say the least. Some of the stars were queuing up to appear before TV cameras and to write lengthy memoirs, narrating their closeness with Thilakan. But most of them didn’t care to go to Thiruvananthapuram and pay their respect for the actor.

In fact writer-director Ranjith showed the courage to state that it is unfortunate to see many of Thilakan’s detractors expressing sadness only now. It was Ranjith who gave Thilakan a significant role in his Indian Rupee when the whole industry had sidelined the actor.

Not many representatives from the film industry were present at Thiruvananthapuram to pay homage to the departed soul. Worse still, it was working day as usual in many film sets. A minimum courtesy to give a holiday in respect of the dead actor wasn’t shown by most filmmakers.

It is sad that the same industry where Thilakan was a formidable force as a brilliant actor for all these years treated the genius actor like this!