Rajesh Pillai - A fine gentle soul who had a heart of gold. The way we bonded during last few months is beyond words. Cinema, travel, bikes.. things we talked about were endless. As a person, he was as sensitive as a child and I remember.. each time we met, we wud [would] laugh so much on some silly joke or the other..
He was an actor's delight who worked on so much detailing with regard to each of his characters and would never be happy unless what you gave him was spot on. On that reg, the actor/director equation we shared during Vettah was unmatched. Xylex Abraham would always be special to me that way.
He was unwell for past few months and got seriously ill a couple of days bak. Today afternoon he bid farewell after gifting us yet another good movie..
Thus goes Indrajith’s emotional post on his Facebook page. Kunchacko Boban, Manju Warrier, Rahman, Abrid Shine and Vineeth Sreenivasan were some of the leading actors and directors who paid tribute to the cherubic director through moving posts that recalled the person and filmmaker that Rajesh was. They recalled his warmth, generosity towards fellow filmmakers and his commitment to cinema.
Some of them like Nivin Pauly put up his photo on their pages to mourn the untimely demise of one of the most promising directors of Malayalam cinema. For Rajesh’s many friends in the Malayalam film industry, and there were many indeed, he was a friend with malice towards none.
Rajesh was a passionate cinephile who found his comfort zone behind the camera. After a roller-coaster ride through school and college, the shy, chubby Rajesh found his calling in cinema and there was no looking back after that. Although the failure of his first film, Hridayathil Sookshikan , disheartened him a great deal, he did not give up.
His second film Traffic opened a new chapter in a cliché-ridden Mollywood that was wallowing in family dramas and senseless thrillers. Traffic was the green signal to a whole bunch of young directors to step into tinsel town and chase their dreams with their kind of cinema.
Traffic remains a landmark in Malayalam cinema for more than one reason. It broke the shackles of the super star system and ushered in a new wave of experimentation and themes that was more in keeping with contemporary society and a new generation of movie-goers.
While his considerable fan following waiting with bated breath for his next film, Rajesh took his time and then came out in 2015 with Mili . Rajesh’s second film was supposed to be Motorcycle Diaries but he had to postpone that for a while as he completed the remake of Traffic in Hindi and then he became immersed with the work on Mili .
It was during the shooting of Mili that Rajesh spoke about his overcoming his introverted nature and doing himself proud with his reel tales. He recalled how he felt that Mili was his story. He had said: ““As soon as film editor and friend Mahesh Narayanan narrated this story to me, I knew I had to direct this story. This [ Mili ] was my story and the story of every introvert or someone who has ever lived with a inferiority complex…. I believe in Paulo Coelho’s quote that when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. That is what happened in this case.”
Rajesh had no airs. That was what demarcated him from many directors full of pretensions, the kind of filmmaker who suddenly becomes too busy for phone calls and ordinary conversations after one mediocre hit. Rajesh refused to get carried away by success or glamour and remained the sincere fan of movies all through his stint in cinema.
While Mili did not break speed barriers at the box office, it showcased Rajesh’s ability to spot a good script and not fall into a rut by doing the same kind of movies. For his third film, Rajesh selected a thriller with a dream cast of Manju Warrier, Kunchacko Boban and Indrajith.
Although he was ailing and required medical attention several times in the middle of the shooting of Vettah , Rajesh’s determination to finish the film ensured that it reached the marquee just before the director passed away the next day.
The Grim Reaper’s bitter harvest in February robbed Malayalam cinema of several legends. Rajesh Pillai was 41, hardly an age to exit the scene. His Motorcycle Diaries will remain unread and unseen.
