Friends remember Kalabhavan Mani

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Filmmaker Lenin Rajendran said that the death of Kalabhavan Mani reminded him of the death of the western pop icon, Michael Jackson. “Of course, they both lived in different orbits but their deaths had strange similarities,” Lenin Rajendran said at a meeting organized in memory of Mani at Manaveeyam Veedhi in Vellayambalam on Sunday.

Both had come up from humble backgrounds and made it big, he said. And both, he said, were universally loved. “But above all, like Mani, Jackson too died in mysterious circumstances in his private residence,” the filmmaker said. Like Jackson, Mani too was attended to by his personal doctor, and questions were raised in both cases.

Lenin Rajendran said that Mani had a wide circle of friends. “Even on the day before his death, I am told there were 30 friends at his outhouse on the banks of Chalakkudy River,” he said. “He gave his heart to his friends, we know. But along with his heart, perhaps a part of his intelligence might also have been led astray,” Mr Rajendran said.

Filmmaker G. S. Vijayan, who introduced Kalabhavan Mani through his serial ‘Vinodasala’, also felt that Mani failed to notice the deception of some of his friends. “It was not just love for Mani that made people to flock to his bachelor's pad in Chalakkudy. Each had their own agenda,” Vijayan said.

“Now, watching how Mani’s death is taking on new turns, I think Mani did not possess the capacity to see through the vested interests of some of his friends,” he added.

Vijayan, too, had once visited Mani at his outhouse in Chalakkudy. Lenin Rajendran said he doubted whether there was anyone in the state who was more loved than Kalabhavan Mani.