Actor Padma Shri Thilakan passed away

Today will be marked as one of the saddest days in Kerala as our favourite veteran actor Padma Shri Thilakan passed away early morning at the age of 77. After suffering from a major heart attack a month back, he was undergoing treatment at a private hospital.
Surendranatha Thilakan was born in 1938. His life as an artist started in 1956 as he stepped into the life as a theatre artist. When he completed his matriculation, he wanted to be a doctor; that was his aim in life. But during college days theatre caught his attention and he was awestruck by the love of acting. Thilakan was dismissed from college due his protest against authorities just after his team had won the third prize in the national theatre festival. There was lot of protest against this decision by the college, but dismissal order was not cancelled even after the intervention of Student Federation. At that point the main issue in hand for him was money. He enrolled for Hindi Vidvan course thinking it would help him get some job. He also had problems of stealing money from his father’s pocket. Later he started making money by singing in communist party meetings as stealing was no longer an option. The rendezvous with professional theatre happened during this period. He started watching rehearsal of a play called Jeevitham Avasanikkunilla- written by Eroor Sukhdev. Later on he was invited to play a part in it and that how we got our gem. Thilakan started a small drama group along with his friends and named it Mundakkayam Nataka Samiti. Some other clubs he was associated with were Kerala People’s Arts Club, Kalidas Kala Kedra and P.J Antony’s group.
 
Thilakan’s movie career started with a role in P J Antony’s Malayalam Movie Periyar in 1973. But his first role as a lead was with Kolangal in 1981. His character as drunkard Kallu Varkey was a topic of discussion during that time. In 1981 itself he won a State Award for second best actor for his role in the movie Yavanika. He won his first national award for the best supporting role for the movie Rithubhedham in 1988. He gained national attention with his stirring performance as the master carpenter in the film Perumthachan even if he lost the award to Amithab Bachchan. But the same role got him State award. Again in 1994 he won state award for his roles in Gamanam and Santhanagopalam. In 2007 he won National award is form of special Jury Award for the movie Ejantham. In 2005 he was honoured with Flimfare Life time achievement award. And Government of India honoured him with Padma Shri in the year 2009. Thilakan was one of the most admired actors in Indian film industry. And he will always be remembered for the legendary roles he played on the silver screen throughout his career.
 
The body will be in VJT hall at 11:30 am for the public to pay their respect to the great actor. The cremation will be at 4:30 pm at Santhikavadam, Trivandrum.
 
Today we bid good bye to a great personality and a great actor.