It must be so nice to be Sreenivasan. To be in your 60s and still live in an utopian world, believing everyone is oh so wonderful and oh so kind, that Maveli still rules Kerala and all people are living ‘onnupole’.
Sreenivasan has been acting, writing and directing films for decades. Yet he believes there is no gender inequality at the workplace, and there is no exploitation of women. Except, of course, when ‘they are willing, anything can happen’. Such a sweet world it must be for him, where nothing goes wrong. And when everything is so perfect, what is the need for a collective like the Women in Cinema Collective? What’s the need for it, what’s their demand, he asks innocently in a recent interview to Manorama.
He is told by the interviewer that they are talking about equality at the workplace. Sreenivasan finds it so funny, he laughs like a child. He then makes it clear for those who haven’t understood it yet – there can’t be equality for, you see, in a 100 metre race, the record for men is 9 point something seconds and for women it is 11. Hahaha, how can there be equality then. So simple, so clear. The anchor then asks doubtfully if it was right to compare it to a running race.
Sreenivasan must have felt so tired explaining something so simple. “In everything,” he says. And breaks it down further for the silly audience: “Can men deliver babies? It may sound like a joke but I'm telling facts.”
There is no one like Sreenivasan to tell people facts as they are. He reminds us about something that we all seem to have overlooked. When the actor-assault case happened two years ago, it was just Pulsar Sunni who was accused at first. Actor Dileep’s name came up only a week later among the accused. Only Sreenivasan seems to know this simple truth about any crime – that it is at the same moment that all the names involved in a crime – from the pawn on the street to the mastermind in his chamber – are revealed, magically. In a single stroke. Any delay means the case is framed. Dileep’s case is obviously framed.
He has other equally strong reasons to believe this. The Dileep he knows would not spend one and a half paisa for "something like this" forget spending one and a half crore rupees as reported. "That miser Dileep!" Sreenivasan appears to be thinking as he laughs helplessly. No, Dileep wouldn’t spend it, he’d rather do it himself, is the unsaid line – as writer Vaikhari Aryat, who wrote a response on her Facebook, puts it.
Not understanding these basics, some have gone and made memes with Sreenivasan’s Poland line from the movie Sandesam. Remember that scene where the enraged communist played by Sreenivasan cautions his brother not to utter a word about Poland? Looks like Dileep is the one-who-must-not-be-named now. The meme-makers think it’s because Dileep produced his son Vineeth’s first directorial that he doesn’t like being asked ‘oraksharam about Dileep’. That’s the only thing Sajitha Madathil, actor and member of the WCC, posted on her Facebook. Actor Revathy, another WCC member, tweeted that it is sad that respected celebrities like Sreenivasan speak in this manner.The rest of the WCC isn't keen on reacting to these marvelous truths that Sreenivasan has revealed.
But they can wait. Sreenivasan is not likely to keep quiet when it comes to telling the truth. Or his version of it. He has, like his colleague Lal Jose (who is also a Dileep sympathiser), found that some of these new generation movies are so unbearable. It's a good thing that everything amuses him. He finds it funny that some of them seem to have forgotten why they made such films. A very positive man, Sreenivasan. If only, no one asks him about Poland, Dileep, new generation films, WCC, politics, or just about anything you want a sensible comment on.