Jagathy Sreekumar is mobbed by reporters at his residence in Thiruvananthapuram.
By Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvanathapuram
Malayalam actor Jagathy Sreekumar, who is undergoing rehabilitation treatment after a near-fatal accident almost a year back, appeared before a packed media at his residence here yesterday.
Though he appeared healthy and pleasant, he could not speak since he had serious brain injuries. He however raised his left hand to greet the journalists.
“He eats regular meals, recognises people, watches movies and enjoys jokes, and even sings (a skill in which the ability to summon words often remains intact even when speech is seriously disrupted),” his son Raj Kumar said.
“All his faculties are OK except that he cannot properly express words. He’s undergoing speech therapy besides regular exercises and it may take two years for him to fully gain his language ability,” the son added.
Sreekumar was brought home on Friday night from Christian Medical College in Vellore in Tamil Nadu where he was admitted for rehabilitation therapy in April after a month-long treatment at the Malabar Institute of Medical Sciences (MIMS) in Kozhikode where he underwent multiple surgeries.
Though the wheelchair-bound actor requires support for movement, he recognises people, mumbles sentences and his memory has almost fully returned, his wife Sobha said. “All his senses are normal and he sings his favourite songs with me.”
The family members said his homecoming was part of the treatment regime prepared by the doctors at the CMC and he has showed remarkable improvement since coming home.
The actor will undergo physiotherapy and speech therapy at his home under the guidance of experts from the CMC as well as the doctors from the Sree Chitra Institute of Medical Sciences here.
The 63-year-old actor was seriously injured in a road accident on March 10 last year near Kozhikode in Kerala.
Sreekumar has acted in over 1,100 films. In 2011 alone, of the 70 Malayalam films that were released, Sreekumar acted in 24.