THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: ‘Munshi,’ the five-minute sitcom on Asianet which has had a loyal following for over a decade, has been caught in its own satirical trap.
The show’s producers have chucked K P S Kurup, the 84-year-old actor who played the wise old Munshi, for joining the Congress party. A furious Kurup is now contemplating legal action saying he was not served a notice. In the meantime, the show reappeared on Sunday evening after a two-week gap with another actor playing ‘Munshi.’ Kurup has been playing the khadar-clad ‘Munshi’ ever since the sitcom’s inception in 2000.
Recently, Kurup had taken membership in the Congress party at the insistence of former minister C V Padmarajan. This apparently did not go down well with the show’s producers and the channel and the sitcom had not been aired for the past two days. A fresh episode appeared on Sunday with an actor named Jacob, who is understood to be from Kolkata.
Kurup is not taking anything lying down.
"No one told me I was being replaced. As per my contract, I’ve never acted in any other show while playing ‘Munshi’ all these years," Kurup, who retired from the Co-operation Department in 1985, said.
The show’s director Anil Banerji was not available for comment. But another artist involved with the sitcom was of the opinion that since the show is apolitical, Kurup should have stepped down of his own volition once he joined a political organisation.
A satirical commentary on daily issues, ‘Munshi’ is aired thrice a day. It has completed approximately 3,770 episodes and has even made it to the Limca Book of Records.