Charlie was Malayalam actor Kalpana Ranjani’s last film. She played the role of Mary who is forced into prostitution by her husband and is battling AIDS. She then meets Charlie, a wild spirit who takes her one night on a voyage on a fish boat to gratify her wish to be taken out into the sea. As the boat tosses in the night breeze, Mary smiles and her eyes well up. Overwhelmed by the experience, she starts praying. Charlie plants a kiss on her cheek, and leaves her looking out at the horizon. But, the next minute, she disappears. She becomes a part of the raging sea.
Kalpana’s real-life exit was also equally intriguing — unpredictable. She was a vibrant presence in the Malayalam screens and quite a busy actor, constantly on the move, acting in Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam films. So the news of her death came as quite a shock.
In an industry, where humour was still the hero’s domain, Kalpana was a breath of fresh air. She broke gender stereotypes and was unperturbed about how she looked. Her body language and diction was completely different from her two sisters, Urvashi and Kalaranjini, who are also terrific actors. She was the tomboy. Who can forget Mariamma — the boisterous cop in Ishtam who bashes up all the poovalanmar , the street-side Romeos in the neighbourhood?
Kalpana also marked her presence in serious roles in Tamil movies such as Sathi Leelavathi , Idhaya Thiruda , Kakki Sattai and Chinna Veedu . In a radio interview, she told the anchor that she never thought she was pretty like her sisters. But that never bogged her down.
She was one of the very few who matched up to the talent and screen presence of actors such as Mohanlal and Jagathy Sreekumar, known for their brilliant comic timing. Remember the scene in Gandharvam , a movie where Mohanlal played Sam, an amateur theatre director? Kalpana plays a young actor smitten by Sam and forgets her lines. The scene is still one of the most-watched Malayalam comedy scenes on YouTube. The scenes between Jagathy and Kalpana are also classic moments in Malayalam cinema. Jagathy — the Johnnie Walker of Malayalam cinema — teamed up with her mostly to play a henpecked husband or a wimpy lover is trying to win a boisterous lady who does not fall for sweet talk.
Throughout her career, she reinvented herself. Thanks to directors such as Ranjith, Anwar Rasheed and Anjali Menon, we got to see a more nuanced side. In Bangalore Days, she transformed beautifully from the traditional mundu -clad Malayali mother into a hep Bengalurean gorging on pizzas. While watching Spirit , a movie about alcohol addiction, we wept for the woman who suffered domestic abuse from her alcoholic husband. In Bridge , she played an embittered house wife, blaming her husband for all her troubles. Through all these roles, Kalpana grew a little closer to us.
As news of Kalpana’s death circulated in social media, eminent Malayalam actors such as KPAC Lalitha and Manoj K Jayan expressed their condolences. However, the most telling was from actor Dulquer (Mammootty’s son), who recalled how Kalpana always commented about how he never kissed her as a child.
An emotional Dulquer wrote: “A thousand kisses in return for that one kiss I always refused to give you.”
