Jayan was our hero, perhaps the first super star in Malayalam cinema. We strongly believed that there was nothing he couldn’t do. He could speak English so fluently. Remember the dialogues in Angadi?. “ …. we may be coolies, but not beggers….”. We could not understand even a single word of what he told, but all of us woke up from our seats in the ‘kottaka’ and gave him a standing ovation. Electrifying. This is the simplest word I have to explain the feelings we had had that time. In ‘Manushya Mrugam he fights with a wild elephant. An elephant can never match Jayan. His action thrillers used to take us through a cliff hanger of tension, anxiety and at the end the usual relief.
Angadi, Karimbana, Moorkhan, Kannapanunni, Kolilakkam.. the list is long. Our excitement starts when the mike laden jeep rolls into our village, loudly announcing the arrival of another Jayan movie on the “enchanting silver screen of Poochakkal Royal”. The silver screen was neither enchanting nor the quality of the film good. As the jeep passes by, they throw out notices too. The most unwanted words in these notices were “…the rest, on the silver screen”. All the notices used to carry this. We run after the jeep and collect maximum number of notices. During every release of movie at Royal Theatre, the jeep visits our village. We had a big collection of notices for a long time. As we started losing our innocence, we felt keeping notices was too silly. I still wonder where I lost my innocence. In my belief the most beautiful thing I ever have seen in my life is the innocence of a child. We have a friend in Kochi. He still collects stamps. Perhaps a little bit of innocence is left out in him still! Long live Stamp Hunter.
So, the trek to the ‘kottaka’ starts eventually. Our gang sets out early, lest we may miss the tickets. We were allowed to go only for the matinee shows as it was difficult to walk back after night shows. At the ring of the first bell, the box office opens. There were three bells before the start of the cinema. The second was to enter the theatre and at the third the movie starts. What follows the first bell is a commission. Jostling and swearing in front of the box office is very common. As the responsible citizens of a great nation, we were never told of importance of discipline and advantages of standing in queue. I don’t think we are teaching this to our children also.
A few of our gang members were very smart. Without them, it would never have been possible for us to get tickets. Prominent among them was Radha alias Radhakrishnan. The box office had two small holes to disburse tickets. Each hole used to have three to four hands squeezed into it with money in their hands. It takes a lot of physical efforts to lay hand on the coveted tickets. At last Radha manages to get the tickets. Dream is about to come true. This was the moment we have been waiting to witness- Our hero in his captivating best. Though not in flesh and blood standing in front of us, it was enough for us to have his darshan in two dimensional images. His looks, his dialogues, his action…we go breathless several times. Hair stand straight many times.
We preferred to see Jayan cinemas if Nazeer also acts in it, because, in this combination we could see more action. They fight each other at first and in that fight no one wins. Then they become friends and beat the enemy.
In the movie Kannappanunni, Nazeer was in distress as the villain cornered him. Tension runs high in the theater. Nail biting scene. Where is Jayan? We felt restless. 
He is not seen when he was most wanted. But heroes are like this always. An element of surprise is always hidden in such nail biting scenes. Perhaps that was the beauty of the otherwise hollow movies like this. When Jayan appears mounted on the horse back, we all jumped for joy and started clapping our hands. For a few moments we were standing on our feet and clapping- virtually forgetting the surrounding.
Many a time our hero risked even his life to save chastity of the heroines. Jayabharati, Seema and many other heroines of ours escaped from the assaults by villains like Balan K Nair only because of the heroics of Jayan. Those days heroine was expected to be a well brought up soft woman, whose only job in the movies was to give glamour. But then even after several years, status of women in reel life is still the same. She need not even reveal everything those days, as there were specialists to do this job. In the present days, heroines go to any length that even Silk Smitha or Anuradha might hesitate to do. But the themes of yester years mainly projected chastity of woman a holy cow whereas the concept of man’s chastity was a non issue. Our movies did a yeoman’s service to glorify rape. Thankfully our films have done away with this trend some where on the way.
As is true to the saying, good people are called back by the God early. One morning, that sad news had come. The Radio news announced the death of Jayan. He was doing a stunt scene for the movie Kolilakkam. It was a big shocking news for all of us. We have not enjoyed his cinemas to our heart’s content yet. We wanted him to live longer to give us entertainers like Angadi. But fate had some other plan, as always. 
After Jayan’s death, imitating his actions and dialogues were a rage among us. Our friend Uthaman was very good at imitating Jayan’s voice. We all tried to speak in his voice. We collected a lot of pictures of his. The pictures showing Jayan hanging from the helicopter while shooting the fateful stunt scene was like hot cakes in the road side stalls in the Temple festivals.
29 years down the line Jayan still lives in our memories though he is laughing stock for the new generations. Our comedy show teams are vying with each other to portray him in the most vulgar way to evoke laughter in the audience. His mannerisms and dialogues are being twisted to a disparaging level. These comedy shows, sadly, are the toast of the Big Stage Shows at present. Doesn’t the Demi God of the yesteryears deserve a better deal from the new generations? He was the greatest entertainer of a generation who had never seen a television or a computer during their childhood.
Memories of the Superstar had made indelible pug marks in our hearts.
Jayan, we can never laugh over the vulgarity in the name of comedy. But we can not stop it too. Please excuse us and also the ones who do it. After all it is their livelihood.
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