One of Chennai’s most popular performing artistes, Crazy Mohan, passed away today afternoon after suffering a cardiac arrest. He was admitted at Kauvery Hospital, where efforts to revive him failed, and he was declared dead at around 2 pm.
Mohan’s demise comes as a double-blow to the theatre fraternity in the country, which was shaken in the morning with the news of the death of eminent thespian Girish Karnad. The theatre and film fraternity in Chennai is shocked by this news, and reactions have been coming in from various actors and directors since then.
Mohan was not only a star on stage but also popular among Tamil movie-going audiences. Some of his most memorable scenes on the big screen see him indulging in hilarious banter with Kamal Haasan, in movies like Thenali, Panchathanthiram, Kadhala Kadhala, Avvai Shanmugi, Vasool Raja MBBS and more.
Mohan adopted the epithet, ‘Crazy’, when he decided to distinguish himself from other artistes who shared the name with him. It was directly inspired by his play Crazy Thieves in Palavakkam. Some of the most recent plays that he presented in Chennai were Crazy Premier League, Google Gadothgajan, Chocolate Krishna (one of his most popular works) and others.
The founder of the theatre troupe Crazy Creations, Mohan has written over 30 plays, acted in over 40 movies and also penned around 100 short stories.