At the Lakeshore Hospital in Kochi on Sunday night, many known faces from the Malayalam film industry dropped by, unable to hold back tears or speak into the microphones extended toward them. One among their most senior and respected colleagues, Innocent, had just passed away, half past ten on March 26. A cancer survivor, the 75-year-old actor and politician had suffered from COVID-19 related complications in the last few weeks.
Politicians – ministers ruling the state among them – were there too, equally distressed, some knowing the actor on a personal level. Innocent, an actor for five decades, had also entered politics in the last decade, winning a seat with the support of the Left in 2014.
Mammootty, superstar and longtime colleague of Innocent, was there earlier in the day, and came back in the night. Jayaram, another senior actor who worked together with Innocent in one of his last films Makal, gestured as he cried that he could not talk to the media. Idavela Babu, secretary of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (A.M.M.A.) was also with Mammootty. That’s the organisation that Innocent had been a president of for more than 12 years, before handing over the post to Mohanlal, another superstar in Malayalam. Actor Kunchacko Boban also came by the hospital in the night.
Minister R Bindu was in tears as she recalled the years that she had known him, living near each other in Irinjalakuda. Minister P Rajeev had announced the news to the media outside the hospital, saying how they had made every attempt to save his life.
The public could pay their last respects on Monday between 8 and 11 am, when Innocent is brought to the Kadavanthra Indoor Stadium. After that he will be taken to Irinjalakuda Town Hall and then at 3 pm to his house and by 5.30 pm to the Irinjalakuda St Thomas Cathedral church for the final rites.