As a kid, I spent my childhood in Goa... Far away from God's own country watching a lot of Hindi Movies (unimaginable now). This was a time when disgusted with the trash being made in the name of cinema I had stopped watching every other movie.At home, we (me and my brother) conversed in broken Malayalam with our parents and were always a source-of-entertainment for our more Malayalam-affluent cousins during our annual visits to Kerala. My parent's attempts at improving our Malayalam speaking abilities never materialized, mostly because we avoided watching any Malayalam movies.
We hated those naseer-jayan-soman-sathyan-madhu movies which were shown as "Pradeshik Movies" on doordarshan every Sunday and believed that most of Malayalam cinema was third rate. We did not have a VHS player and hardly any Malayalam movie played in a theatre. We used to rent a VHS player occasionally, but always watched Hindi/English movies. Again it was difficult to get a Malayalam movie cassette.
Every thing changed during one of our Kerala visits. Chitram was the current blockbuster of the season and almost every guy we met would mouth a dialogue from the movie, in what is now famous as the inimitable lalettan style. We saw a few scenes from the movie at a friends place and wow... I was drawn into a new world of fascination - Mohanlal.
We had discovered a new liking for movies. All thanks to the brilliant performances of one man. On our return, we pestered Achan to get us more Mohanlal movies, which he very willingly sought out to do. After Chitram, Naadodikaatu, Bharatham, Poochakku oru mookutti, Kireedam and many more.. every Mohanlal movie was a not-to-miss, even at the expense of our homework. Very soon we had finished watching most, if not all Mohanlal movies available, not once but many a times. We soon took a liking to the Malayalam language and other Malayalam movies as well.
Down the years, I went on to enjoy and treasure many a great performances from this wonderful actor. He would make me cry my heart out, bring a lump in my throat, throw me off my seat with laughter and many a times make me despise him, all with an effortless ease.. never seen in Indian cinema. Little wonder that today he is regarded as the Best in India way ahead of his contemporaries Kamal Haasan, Mammotty, Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri.
The recent past have been disappointing with Mohanlal playing larger-than-life superheroes ala Rajnikant. So last year when there were reports of the return of Mohanlal of yesteryear ( love his common man roles ) , I drove all the way from NJ to NY to watch "Udhayanannu Tharam". Guess what... it again set me up for a another innings rewatching his old classics.
Mohanlal rekindled a passion for movies that hasn't quenched till now and every time I get disillusioned with movies I know where to go.
Some articles on my favourite star:
Mohanlal: The Phenomenon
Sify - Milestones in Mohanlal's career
Mohanlal vs Kamal
Alternate Movies
Mohanlal on Wikipedia
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