He was not a national figure. Other than the minor roles he played in Hindi movies that ace director Priyadarshan made, or remade based on Malayalam movie plots, Innocent was unmistakably a Malayalam movie actor to the core. 

Yet, the nation will remember that moment when Innocent, the member of Parliament, ignored the repeated pleas of then Lok Sabha speaker, Sumitra Mahajan, to wait for a translator, and went on speaking in Malayalam, without any inhibition, merely to convey the point that the government should ensure free medicine and facilities for cancer patients and make them accessible in all parts of 'Bharatham'. 

As a one-time member of Parliament, one of Innocent’s core contributions to his constituency and the society at large, was his utilisation of MP funds to set up oncological facilitates for the common man. That is because he was on a prolonged and enduring fight against this dreaded illness, along with this wife, and eventually succumbed to cancer, after putting up a valiant fight for many years. 

A thespian Indian cinema failed to celebrate 

Innocent, the actor, represented many things. 

First, he represented the enormity, intensity and magnitude of Malayalam cinema, and the talent Mollywood produced. 

Second, Innocent represented the legion of thespians that regional language cinema produced but what the national filmdom failed to recognize and celebrate for the simple reason that they were not part of Bollywood, or the Hindi film industry, and hence, failed to reach or be watched in every nook and corner of the country. 

Third, Innocent symbolizes the impressive talent that Indian cinema produced but failed to be identified or located on the international movie circuit, for the simple fact that global film industry refused to take note of the depth and extent of Indian cinema, beyond the rare recognition given to the likes of Satyajit Ray and Adoor Gopalakrishnan, and, in recent times, to Slumgdog Millionaire and RRR.  

There are umpteen such exemplary artists that Indian cinema, particularly regional language cinema, has produced but failed to blossom beyond their immediate linguistic zones. This diversity denoted not just the enormity but also the key limitations of Indian cinema. But for the language barrier and cultural factors, actors like Innocent should have shone on the national scene with immemorable roles and characters. 

After all, many Indian actors have traversed across film industries across the country and made their mark in regional cinemas, be it Prakash Raj, Ashish Vidyarthi, Atul Kulkarni, Sayaji Shinde, R Madhavan, Nandita Das and so on, who were all as comfortable in Kodambakkam or Ramoji City as much as they were in the Mumbai studios. 

While Bollywood stars like Nasserudin Shah, Om Puri and Anupam Kher have taken that occasional plunge into regional language movies, Bollywood could have immensely gained had it carved a space for regional artists who were available by the dozen. Be it Innocent, Jagathy Sreekumar, Nassar, Brahmanandam, Nedumudi Venu, Vijayaraghavan, Sudeep, Jagapathi Babu, Manorama, Kovai Sarala, Manobala, M.S. Bhaskar, Kishore, Saranya Ponnvarnan, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Revathy, Pasupathi, Achyuth Rao, or Sadhu Kokila, an endless list of talent exist in the regional cinema that the Hindi film industry failed to exploit in the manner they engaged select few from Marathi and Bengali cinema. 

A lifetime in cinema

Having acted in over 600 movies, it is difficult to summarize the colossal filmography of Innocent’s nearly six decades of contribution to Malayalam cinema in a few paragraphs. One thing was clear; his comic demeanour and flawless acting even in his first movie – Nrithashala (1972) – was evidence enough that he will be around for a lifetime of service for the world of Malayalam cinema. 

With not even a matriculation in hand and no family legacy in cinema to boast of or any god fathers in the industry, Innocent too went through the grind of strugglers and aspirant actors, a generation of whom endured early years of hardships and penury in the tinsel town of Kodambakkam, where Malayalam cinema was also largely based in the 1970s and 1980. 

Innocent’s golden years in Malayalam cinema started in the late 1980s and early 1990s with movies like Ponnmutta Idunna Tharavu, Ramji Rao Speaking, Nadodi Kaatu, Mazhavil Kavadi, Dr Pasupathy, Kilukam, Devasuram, God Father and Manichitrathazhu establishing him as a force of reckoning in the industry. Though hundreds of memorable roles and characters were destined to be delivered in the decades to come, Innocent exhibited the versatility of talent that Malayalam cinema has produced over the years. 

Having established as the most sought-after comedy actor along with Jagathy Sreekumar, Innocent, like his contemporary, delivered performances that traversed through roles that shattered the comedian stereotype and tread into characters that were mature, sometimes involved villainy, deep pathos and sentiments and even those that provided profound social and political messages to the Kerala society. The roles with negative shades in Kathodu Kathoram and Adwaitham are template performance that exhibited how comedian actors can do villainy with elan even while inducing humour in their criminality. 

While the roles like that of Dr Pashupathy (in which he donned the hero’s jacket), Pannikar (Ponnmutta Idunna Tharavu), Shankarankutty Menon (Mazhavil Kavadi), Mathaiachen (Ramji Rao), Warrier (Devasuram), Kittunni (Kilukkam), Swaminathan (God Father) are milestones in Malayalam filmdom, even the cameos he did, like Yashwant Sahai in the cult political satire, Sandesham, or Kunjuraman in Jathakam, and the punch dialogues he delivered will remain permanently etched in the Kerala psyche and integral to Malayalee’s cultural imagination.

An interesting aspect about Innocent’s film career, however, is the fact that even before he made a mark as an actor, he was part of some notable movie ventures in the early 1980s as a producer, with two of them – Illakangal and Ormakayi – fetching state awards. He also produced Lekhyaude Maranam Oru Flashback, an inimitable cinematic experiment by veteran film maker, K.G. George, and unseen in Indian cinema, wherein the real-life death of a talented young actress was tracked and captured as a movie.

A part-time communist who unionized Malayalam cinema

An actor becoming a member of Lok Sabha is a common practice in recent years. However, the unique thing about Innocent was that he hailed from a devout Catholic family which had leftist leanings, with his father, termed by the actor himself, as the inspiration to align with the Communist Party of India (Marxist). It, hence, came as no surprise that the CPM fielded him to wrest a Congress bastion and a Christian-dominated Chalakudy seat in 2014. Earlier, he served as a councilor and was also an active member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), thus proving that he was no political novice who got his political calling due to his celebrity status.  

Though the limitations of language restricted Innocent’s participatory role in the Lok Sabha, his famous intervention to raise the issue of cancer treatment was much appreciated even by the then speaker, who, despite disapproving his impromptu speech, put on record the struggles Innocent went through in his fight against cancer. 

Despite losing the 2019 election to a political heavyweight in a poll season where his political side lost miserably at the hustings, few can dispute his yeoman service in his constituency. It is this unique combo of people’s skills and political craft that allowed him to be at the helm of the apex Malayalam movie artists collective, AMMA (Association of Malayalam Movie Artists), for a whopping 18 years, a period when he massaged many inflated egos, factional feuds and competing interests to successfully lead an organization that became a model for all film industries in the country. 

In fact, few other film industries could emulate a similar organizational model with the one coming closest to it, the Nadigar Sangam, known for its acerbic feuds and lasting acrimony. The humanitarian support to yesteryear and retired artists and the cultural events collectively organized with dedicated participation of even the superstars illustrated the strength of AMMA, which could have collapsed or split up but for a potent leader like Innocent being around to hold it together.  

Fought cancer with humour

Though his eventual exit is by succumbing to cancer, which he was battling for over a decade, Innocent became a role model for cancer patients not just in Kerala or India, but also across the globe with his book Cancer Wardile Chiri (Laughter in the Cancer Ward) being translated in many Indian and foreign languages. 

The manner in which Innocent humorized his and his wife’s fight with cancer substantially changed the paradigm of cancer patients in a society that still confronts this illness with fear and stigma. The way Innocent dismissed his chances of dying out of cancer through jokes, which seemed crude at moments but had deep meanings and social messages, provided much needed motivation and solace to the thousands who were exposed to his books, writing and television appearances through which he narrated his successful fight against cancer, almost fully recuperating on two occurrences but succumbing to the third.  

It was, hence, only appropriate that many of his colleagues remembered Innocent as someone who defeated cancer with laughter and humour. 

A school drop-out who could write 

For someone who had schooling only till 8th standard and had little grasp over any other language other than Malayalam (and Tamil), Innocent had authored 7 books, and one of them, Irinjalakudakku Chuttum fetching him the Kerala Sahitya Akademic Award for humour in 2020. 

Along with his autobiography and recollections of his cancer experiences, Innocent's books emerged as a significant contribution to these genres in Malayalam literature. Such contribution, and ubiquitous presence of wife in his narratives, prompted some of his friends to compare him with Vaikom Muhammad Basheer whose contribution to Malayalam literature in its humorous, satirical and contemplative dimensions stood out as classics and masterpieces. 

Needless to emphasize, Innocent’s demise is an irreparable loss to the Malayalam industry, which had in the last few years lost many thespians including Nedumudi Venu, KPAC Lalitha, Thilakan, Sukumari, Oduvil Unnikrishnan and so on. It seems that a generation of Malayalam cinema is gradually biding adieu. 

While the vibrant Malayalam film industry which flaunts a rich talent base may continue to foster many new talents filling in for the void left by many of these artists, it is a foregone conclusion that the vacuum that Innocent’s exit creates cannot be filled by anyone.

For, Innocent, simply, is irreplaceable!