It’s not easy to explain through words what Sreenivasan’s brilliance was, either as a screenwriter-filmmaker or as an actor. One can only understand its true extent by experiencing his work. However, it can definitely be said that one of the factors that made his movies and performances dear to Malayalees was their ordinariness. Much like the man himself, his characters were also raw and unfiltered. If any of his characters appeared to be wearing a mask, he ensured they were unmasked before the silver screen went blank. He popped the bubbles surrounding people, provoked the egos that defined them, and exposed their affectations like nothing else. Yet, there was an extreme sincerity at the core of his words and works.
In fact, even Rajinikanth and Shah Rukh Khan couldn’t recreate the magic that Sreenivasan achieved once when they remade one of his films in their respective languages. Even though these movies were helmed by the most prolific filmmakers in both industries, they failed to replicate the success of the Malayalam original.