Shaji N Karun Passes Away

Indian cinema has become poorer today. Shaji Neelakantan Karunakaran aka Shaji N. Karun passed away yesterday at the age of 73 due to cancer. He was brought home after a brief stay at a private hospital in Thiruvanananthapuram. He was 73 years old.

Born in Kollam in 1952, Shaji N Karun made his directorial debut with Piravi, which released in 1988. Though it didn’t win the Camera D’ Or, Karun was awarded a Special Mention Award for his movie, which was based on the disappearance of Rajan Warrier, who protested against the Emergency imposed by the Indira Gandhi government in the 1970s, and disappeared from police custody, presumably killed within the premises.

Karun went on to direct movies like Swaham, Vanaprastham, Kutty Srank. He directed only one movie Nishad, which released in 2002. Shaji N Karun was collecting resources to make a biographical film on the life of Hungarian origin Indian painter Amrita Shergill, who was an enigma, both professionally and personally, before she breathed her last at Lahore in 1941.