Kochi: It was just another quiet Saturday morning at the Tripunithura Taluk Headquarters Hospital, the kind where the day eases into motion slowly. The OP counters were yet to open fully, and only a handful of patients moved through the courtyard. Around 8 am, P P Ramesan, the hospital’s security staff, stood at his usual post, regulating vehicles at the entrance, an ordinary duty on an ordinary morning.

At 8.15 am, that ordinariness broke.

An ambulance rushed through the gate and stopped abruptly. Ramesan and a few hospital staff hurried forward, as they had done countless times before. But when the stretcher was pulled out, there was a brief, stunned pause. Lying unconscious inside was Sreenivasan, the man who had made generations laugh, reflect, and question themselves through cinema.

“He was unconscious. We understood he was on the way to Amrita Hospital for dialysis and had to be rushed here after his condition worsened,” Ramesan recalled later. 

Doctors took him inside immediately. For a few tense minutes, efforts were made to revive him. But time had already slipped away. At 8.22 am, the doctors declared him dead.

“It was painful to see him like that. It is a loss for the Malayalam film industry,” Ramesan said. 

By then, his wife Vimala and daughter-in-law Arpitha, his son Dhyan’s wife, had reached the hospital. Outside, the news spread quickly. Patients from other blocks, bystanders, and hospital staff drifted toward the main building, drawn by disbelief more than curiosity. Media persons arrived soon after, and additional police personnel were deployed to control the swelling crowd.

Among the first from the film fraternity to reach the hospital were Renji Panicker and Ramesh Pisharody. Politicians, including MLA K Babu, also arrived. When Sreenivasan’s body was taken out of the hospital building and moved into the ambulance, people surged forward for a final glimpse of the actor who had made them laugh and think, often at the same time. His elder son, Vineeth Sreenivasan, had reached by then.

By around 10.15 am, formalities at the hospital were completed, and the ambulance headed to his home in Kandanad.

The narrow road leading to the house and the courtyard was already crowded. Neighbours, farmers, admirers, and fans, many of whom had never met him personally and all of them waited silently. 

The house, nestled amid thick clusters of trees, fruit-bearing orchards and vegetable farms against a backdrop of paddy fields, had been Sreenivasan’s residence for nearly 15 years. Once alive with his presence -walking through the fields, tending plants, speaking passionately about agriculture - the place felt unusually still that morning. The land he loved so much seemed to pause with him.

Sreenivasan’s mortal remains were placed in a mobile mortuary in the main hall. His family sat close by. Vineeth and Vimala were hard to console as a long queue formed outside. Local residents, farmers, colleagues from cinema, and ordinary admirers came and each stepped in quietly to pay final respects.

At around 11.15 am, his younger son, actor Dhyan Sreenivasan, arrived. As he walked toward his father’s body, he broke down. Vimala hugged her son tightly, and for a few moments, words failed everyone around them. It took time for those nearby to gently lead them away, the grief in the room thick and palpable.

Actor Mammootty, accompanied by his wife Sulfath, arrived soon after. He stood beside his longtime friend in silence for a few moments and later consoled Vineeth. Actors Kunjan, Lakshmipriya, Anjali Nair, and NCP leader PC Chacko were among those who came to pay tributes before noon.

To the people living around him, Sreenivasan was never a star.

“He was a simple man, one of us. We constructed our house and moved here three years ago. When we realised Sreenivasan was living opposite our house, we invited him for all our functions. He came every time, even for the foundation stone laying ceremony, and stayed for nearly half an hour. No attitude, no airs. He genuinely loved nature, agriculture, and people,” said Vinod, his neighbour.

At 12.15 pm, his body was taken to Ernakulam Town Hall, where a public homage was arranged. After leaving the quiet lanes of Kandanad, the cortege moved toward Ernakulam Town Hall. 

At the Town Hall, the scale of the loss became unmistakable. By early afternoon, the crowd had already spilled beyond the gates. At around 2 pm, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan arrived to pay tributes, standing for a few moments in silence before the mortal remains. Kochi Mayor M Anilkumar, ministers Saji Cherian and P Rajeev, MP Hibi Eden, and MLAs T J Vinod and Roji M John were among those present.

The queues formed multiple lines - long, slow-moving, and patient - stretching outside the Town Hall. People waited quietly for a last look at the man who had once belonged to their living rooms through the cinema. There was no jostling, no hurry, only a shared sense of farewell.

Almost the entire Malayalam film fraternity turned up. Leading actors, technicians, writers, and directors stood shoulder to shoulder with ordinary citizens. Representatives of the Association of Malayalam Movie Actors were present in solidarity.

Beside the body sat Vineeth, Dhyan, and Vimala - silent, drained, holding themselves together as wave after wave of mourners passed by.

The public homage, scheduled to conclude at 3 pm, had to be extended till 3.30 pm as the queues showed no sign of thinning.

What stood out was not just the presence of celebrities or political leaders, but the diversity of the crowd. Farmers, students, daily wage workers, office-goers, elderly couples, people from every stratum of society came, each carrying a personal memory of Sreenivasan: a line of dialogue, a character, a film that once made them laugh and think.

From the silence of a hospital corridor to the overflowing Town Hall, his final journey traced the breadth of his life’s impact.