<\/p>\n
Sharjah: For the family of Pooja Jenson, an Indian expat in the UAE, the passing of legendary Malayalam actor, screenwriter, film director and producer Sreenivasan on Saturday goes beyond the loss of a cinematic icon. It is intensely personal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Her father, Cyriac Philip, a retired assistant bank manager currently visiting Pooja\u2019s family in Sharjah, was Sreenivasan’s friend from their college days in the early 1970s, and the families remained close for over five decades back home in Kerala.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cIt is a great loss to the Malayalam film industry, but it is a big personal loss to us, especially my father,\u201d Pooja, an admissions officer with a British school in Sharjah, told Gulf News.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cHe would have gone to see Sreeni uncle had he been in Kerala. He is still struggling to come out of that grief,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The friendship began in 1972 at Pazhassi Raja NSS College, Mattannur, Kannur, where Cyriac, who is from Mananthavady in neighbouring Wayanad district, had just enrolled for his BCom degree.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Sreenivasan, who had completed his degree the previous year, had already made a name for himself as the college arts club secretary, known for his comedy and magazine writing and winner of the Best Actor at the Calicut University Youth Festival.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cHe was very famous in college,” Cyriac recalled. \u201cThen Sreeni came back to the college campus to work as the canteen manager cum cashier. That’s when we became friends.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Cyriac lived in the college hostel with his friend Balachandran, who later moved to Malaysia, and his cousin Mathew. Since there was no mess in the hostel, students had to walk to the college canteen next door, where hostellers maintained accounts. This daily routine brought the young men together.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The trio later moved out of the hostel to VR Nair Lodge, and Sreenivasan became a regular weekend visitor. \u201cHe would spend Saturday and Sunday with us. He continued coming to us and even came to my house in Mananthavady and stayed with us,\u201d said Cyriac.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Later, he said, Sreenivasan began teaching at a parallel college in Kuthuparamba. His father and some friends also bought a bus, in which he occasionally worked. Despite his growing commitments, the friendship remained strong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
After completing his degree, Cyriac started working as a contractor in partnership when Sreenivasan was about to join the film institute in Madras, now Chennai, to learn acting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cHe came to meet me before he left for Madras. I did help him in some way,\u201d Cyriac said, without elaborating on the nature of his assistance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Years later, the friends met again under unexpected circumstances. Sreenivasan came to Mananthavady for a film shoot. If Cyriac’s memory serves him right, it was for the movie Ottappettavar, in which the actor had a small role.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cHe stayed in the TB (Tourist Bungalow). But he came to my home in the evening. Since I was not there at that time, he passed a message asking me to reach Valliyoorkavu Bhagavathy Temple at 10am the next morning. We met and spent some time together,\u201d Cyriac recalled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
However, the friends lost touch after Cyriac secured a job with South Indian Bank and was posted to Delhi and later Bangalore. The reconnection happened when Cyriac’s cousin Metty Grace asked him to invite Sreenivasan as a guest for a Kerala Samajam event in Bangalore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cI did not know where Sreeni was, and I sent a letter to his Pattiom address,\u201d Cyriac said. \u201cBut I didn’t get a response for many days, and he didn’t come for the event.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
A month and a half later, Cyriac received a call at the bank. He had written his office number in the letter. \u201cHe called back and said he was out of station and just got back and read the letter. And then we got reconnected,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Sreenivasan later made up for missing the Bangalore event by attending as a guest at Kerala Samajam in Mysore, where Cyriac had settled after his marriage. He visited again with his wife Vimala and elder son Vineeth when they were travelling to Chennai for Vineeth’s plus two admission at an SBI Officers Association School after he completed his SSLC from Rani Jai School in Kuthuparamba.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThey came to our house and stayed with us for a day,\u201d Cyriac said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Pooja vaguely remembers Sreenivasan’s first visit to Mysore, but her memories of his second visit are vivid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cI was very small when he first came. But I clearly remember the next time when he came with family,\u201d she said. \u201cVineeth Ettan (elder brother) was very friendly. I remember us going to the park and having popcorn. We also went around Mysore city with them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The families remained close, inviting each other for special occasions. \u201cWe were so happy when Sreeni came for Pooja’s engagement. We were invited for both his children’s weddings,\u201d Cyriac said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cPooja couldn’t make it for Vineeth’s, but she and her daughter joined us for Dhyan’s wedding.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source gulfnews.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sharjah: For the family of Pooja Jenson, an Indian expat in the UAE, the passing of legendary Malayalam actor, screenwriter, film director and producer Sreenivasan on Saturday goes beyond the loss of a cinematic icon. It is intensely personal. Her father, Cyriac Philip, a retired assistant bank manager currently visiting Pooja\u2019s family in Sharjah, was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2211500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[22578,427158,425893,378035,344744],"class_list":["post-2211499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-india","tag-indian-expats","tag-kerala","tag-sharjah","tag-uae"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Indian-expat-family-in-UAE-reveals-untold-stories-of-actor.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2211499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2211499"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2211499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2211501,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2211499\/revisions\/2211501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2211500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2211499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2211499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2211499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}