Tribute: Mamukkoya and his Malabar Malayalam

Malayalam film actor Mamukkoya's down-to-earth demeanour was a quick hit with the audiences, and so were his casually delivered witticisms. (Images via Twitter)

Mamukkoya only had to appear on screen to have the audience burst into laughter. His toothy grin with its trademark tendency to launch into funny home-truths was enough to evoke much mirth. Anything he said, including his most iconic dialogues, were funny only because he mouthed them. Very rarely do character actors get so synonymous with their words.

The death of one of Kerala’s favourite comic actors in Kozhikode at the relatively young age of 76 has left the state in mourning, coming as it does so soon after comic superstar Innocent’s recent demise. Where Innocent won hearts with his native Thrissur accent, Mamukkoya had made the Malabar dialect his weapon of charm. Like Innocent, Mamukkoya too had a varied professional past, having worked in a timber mill before turning to theatre in 1979 and then to films soon after. Having acted in over 450 films and bagging two state awards, he was the first comedian in Malayalam cinema to win the Kerala State Film Award in 2015 – no small feat.

One of his earliest hits was Nadodikkattu, a landmark comic blockbuster in the state's films of the late '80s, where he played Gafoor-ka, who ‘takes’ the film’s two heroes Mohanlal and Sreenivasan to the Gulf. As a con artist who actually leaves them at Chennai’s Marina beach with great confidence in lieu of Dubai, his role was one more class act in a film full of great acting. The actor, who once said in an interview, ‘I wanted to be an artist from childhood,’ became a darling of the masses overnight.

If his down-to-earth demeanour was a quick hit with the audiences, so were his casually delivered witticisms. Like most comedians, he often had to appear sheepish on screen while going with the flow of a scene, and he did this without playing to the gallery but by maintaining an authenticity rare to behold. As superstar Mohanlal said in the wake of his demise, ‘Mamukkoya never had pretensions.’

The way he spoke was his money in the bank – it is what endeared him to fans and film critics alike. For many Malayalees, his advice to the two heroes of Nadodikkattu, to tell everyone (in Dubai!) they are ‘Gafoor ka dosth’, symbolizes his dash of almost James Bondian insouciance. This artless quality he brought to key dialogues, that mix of carelessly delivered words, as opposed to the laborious and theatrical touches that other comedians were apt to favour, gave him the conversational skills of a natural performer.

The Mappila dialect, or Arabi Malayalam, and his Kozhikode days had him stand apart not only from other comic artists in Malayalam cinema, but also from any other actor who had to share a scene with him. Mamukkoya was a master of the light touch. A consummate actor, he could pare down his words to bare essentials, bringing even to the most populist of comedies his own brand of magic.

That’s who he was and will remain in popular imagination: an eternal entertainer.