Following Sreenivasan's passing, it is worth remembering the screenwriter-actor's days at the film institute, where he studied acting with the likes of Rajinikanth. In an old interview with Kaumudi, the late actor-writer-filmmaker reminisced about an incident where Rajinikanth's (then Shivaji Rao Gaikwad) former lover encouraged him to join the film institute and pursue a career in acting. He said that the superstar, who worked as a bus conductor at the time, met a girl in his bus and gradually fell in love with her. "One day, he asked her to attend his drama. She went for it and was stunned by Rajinikanth's performance in it," Sreenivasan recalled. He added, "Then, she told Rajinikanth about an advertisement for the film institute and constantly encouraged her to study acting there. Initially, he showed reluctance for it, saying that he was running his family with his job as a bus conductor. He was living in a small house in Bangalore," the late writer-actor revealed.
"She told Rajinikanth, 'Do not worry about the expenses, I would help you with that,' and he eventually agreed to join the institute. In his early days, she would send him the money," the actor-writer disclosed. He also revealed that the girl stopped sending money to the superstar all of a sudden and that nobody knew about her whereabouts. "Rajinikanth thought that she ended their relationship with him because he was not financially strong. Rajini told Devan (his Baashha co-star), with tears in his eyes, that his whole purpose of living was that girl," Sreenivasan recalled. He also said that the superstar met him and rekindled their friendship after a long time, after watching 2007's Katha Parayumpol, a film that he wrote and starred in. For the uninitiated, Katha Parayumpol follows the friendship between a superstar (Mammootty) and his old friend, barber Balan (Sreenivasan).
