his friends travelled through villages and collected money from the general public. Odessa also collected funds for the film by screening Charlie Chaplin's The Kid. The film, Amma Ariyan (Report to mother) (1986) was exhibited across the state of Kerala on a non-commercial basis, an initiative kept alive, after John's death, by his colleague and co-founder of Odessa Collective, Odessa Sathyan. He started shooting a documentary based on the life of E.M.S. Namboodiripad, but never completed it. The media called him Ottayan (The Lone Tusker). He has left behind a number of complete and incomplete scripts. A collection of his stories had been published under the title Nerchakkozhi. Another collection of his stories has been published posthumously under the title John Abrahaminte Kathakal by Pakshikkottam Books, Thiruvananthapuram in 1993. Death On 30 May 1987 John was admitted to the Calicut Medical College hospital following his fall from a house top after a party. He was not identified by the hospital authorities, and allegedly not given due attention and medical care, which caused his condition to deteriorate, leading to his death on 31 May. Following the allegations of medical negligence, a departmental inquiry was conducted into the incident. 26 years after John's death, social activist B. Ekbal who was a surgeon at the Calicut Medical College when John was admitted for treatment, revealed that the director could have been saved if his identity was known to the doctors at the time of admission. He said the doctors at the casualty did not know John and mistook him for a film representative when he said that he was a filmmaker. In a Facebook post, Ekbal said the doctors failed to diagnose internal bleeding suffered by John and to check his blood pressure which could have prevented him from slipping into a shock through a timely surgery. Filmography Documentaries 1967: Koyna Nagar – Director (in English) – Unreleased 1969: Priya – Director (in Hindi) – (John's Diploma film at FTII, Pune) 1969: Hides and Strings – Director (in English) Feature films 1972: Vidyarthikale Ithile Ithile (This Way, Students) – Director (in Malayalam) Screenplay: M Azad — Cast: Madhu, Adoor Bhasi, Manorama, S. V. Ranga Rao, Jayabharathi, S. P. Pillai – Cinematography: Ramachandra Babu – Music: M. B. Sreenivasan 1977: Agraharathil Kazhuthai (Donkey in the Elite Colony) – Director and Screenwriter (in Tamil) Screenplay: Venkat Saminathan – Cast: M. B. Sreenivasan, |Swathi, Savitri, Raman