Remembering Monisha Unni -1

Moonbeam. That was what she embodied onscreen. You just couldn’t get enough of it, you never even realized as it enveloped you in its cool and welcoming glow, and you were so suffused in it you hardly realised when she withdrew. You were already in a good, warm and comfortable place inside your head, snug and joyful by then. Right from her debut in MT – Hariharan team’s Nakhakshathangal (1986) to her last, Cheppadi Vidya (1992), in a short span of six years, she managed to give you a varied handful of onscreen portrayals that refuse to go away, try hard as one could. She never had to try hard to do that for any of those roles – emoting came effortlessly, almost like her natural grace,  it was obvious on screen. I still remember that cold morning in December when you opened up the newspaper, mind still asleep, and the headline screamed at you about her passing away. It was one of the moments when you really, really sat down and questioned the “Natural Order of things”.