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”.
If only, she had sat through a dozen more of similar conversations ! Now, that would have resulted in something that any Malayalam Cinema fan would have deliriously dived in and would have really taken his/her own time to come up for air. 
Malayala Manorama reports on the Prem Nazir Foundation Award for the Year (2010) being conferred to T Hariharan, who is one of those few Directors in Malayalam Cinema, and I would say Indian Cinema, who has defiantly refused being pigeon-holed in any genre. I think it is a felicitation that was long overdue for someone whose adeptness in handling the stereotyped ‘commercial’ productions, the ‘Arty’ ones and those high in literary content as well commercial faring at the Box-Office is legion. Correct me if I am wrong but his very first film as a director, Ladies Hostel in 1973 had Prem Nazir as the lead, produced by Dr. Balakrishnan.
OLD MALAYALAM CINEMA 