Thilakan banned from Serials also

Veteran actor Thilakan, who was ousted from the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (AMMA) on grounds of indiscipline and virtually kept out of Malayalam films, has now been dropped from a TV serial. Speaking to mediapersons Tuesday, the 74-year-old actor said that Monday evening the producer of TV serial Maatuoruval called up to say that he should be ready by 9 a.m. the next morning for the shoot. I was asked to be present near Kovalam where the shooting is going on for the recently started serial being shown on Surya TV. But late night I got calls from a few artistes working in the serial saying that they are helpless because they have been told not to cooperate with me as I have been excommunicated by AMMA and hence the TV fraternity also should keep me away, Thilakan said. Thilakan alleged that Association of Television Media Artistes (ATMA) headed by its president and opposition legislator K.B. Ganesh Kumar was behind his ouster from the TV serial. Ganesh Kumar is also the vice-president of AMMA... But I am not going to lie low, I will fight this injustice, Thilakan added. But ATMA general secretary Poojapura Radhakrishnan said that Thilakan has for long been attacking their president. Only a few days back he lashed out at our president. Any organization has to have some sort of discipline and decorum. We have nothing against him because he is a great actor. We just cant take the abuses all the time, Radhakrishnan said. In April Thilakan was shown the door by AMMA for publicly criticising the associations office bearers. He had called AMMA a mafia that did not take care of the interests of the artistes.