Mammootty vs Mohanlal — Keralite’s favourite baseless debate!
I am a Mohanlal fan! And so much fan that I used to mimic him on stage quite often. It was a curious start that I had an audio cassette of the film Ravanaprabhu. Audio cassette should not be the ideal terminology, it should be audio film which means the whole film was cut short into a smaller version so much so that it could be included into a Audio Cassette. The movie penned by Renjith had some classy dialogues and I used to listen to it day in and day out. As a result, the dialogues were by heart to me and gradually I invoked Mohanlal into my soul and could imitate his mannerism and voice. But what has this got to do with this baseless debate?
I wanted to pinpoint that everyone has a one sided approach to this debate and what I mean is — if the debate is Mammootty vs Mohanlal, you evaluate the performances either Mammootty’s or Mohanlal’s — no one speaks on the basis of evaluation of both their performances — it has always been one sided. The Mammootty supporters must have watched only Mammootty’s performance and so he is the best for the same. While Mohanlal supporters must have watched Mohanlal’s performance and so he is the best for them.
Some Mammootty admirers purposefully ignore Mohanlal’s brilliance and so do Mohanlal admirers who ignore Mammootty’s brilliance because it is a part of their ego and for many it is of course a competition.
Well, if you compare both their performances which would cover more than 750 characters played when combined, you would go speechless for such has been their dynamism in the craft of acting. Be it movies like “Thaniyaavarthanam”, “Atharvam”, “Mathilukal”, “Bhoothakannaadi”, “Sadayam”, “T.P Balagopalan M.A”, “Dasharatham”, “Bharatham”, “Varavelpu”, “Iruvar” and the list goes on which silences the debate.
This baseless debate would not have been doing the rounds without the masterclass screenplays penned by the respected writers. And moreover, they are considered as mega star or superstar — whatever but they wouldn't reach this position without the performance of the crew that surrounds them when each scene is being shot. I always think that the career of these actors are at the feet of light-boys. Another thought process is that they are just doing their jobs — just like how an engineer or a doctor or a manager or a journalist etc.
I also pinpoint that there has always been a consistent effort to celebrate Mohanlal’s long tenure as an actor — be it in the television or with stage shows. But Mammootty has made no such efforts.
We must thank all the cast and crew because without them these stars would not see life.
