At age 73, master auteur Shaji N. Karun dies.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Shaji N. Karun, a great filmmaker, cinematographer, and one of the nation's most profound visual poets, passed away, leaving the film industry without an icon. He was seventy-three. His films showed pain through the tiny, nearly imperceptible cracks in the heart rather than through large movements. As though one were living inside one of his own stories, his death has an uncanny familiarity. His fans are now enveloped in the same oppressive quiet.His critically acclaimed films, Piravi (1988), Swaham (1994), Vanaprastham (1999), and Kutty Srank (2009), are his most well-known works. At the 1989 Cannes Film Festival, his first feature, Piravi, took home the Caméra d'Or Special Mention and the National Award for Best Director. Swaham was only the second Indian film to be chosen for the competition part, and he also went to Cannes.

Vanaprastham received a great deal of national and worldwide acclaim. He was the head of the Kerala State Film Development Corporation at the time of his death.Shaji was born in Kollam in 1952 and was raised in a culturally sensitive family. His mother fostered his passion for literature and the classical arts, while his father was employed in the revenue department. The family relocated to Thiruvananthapuram in 1963, when Shaji attended University College and Palkulangara High School. He enrolled in the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune in 1971 and received a gold medal in cinematography upon graduating in 1974. Genesis, his graduation film, had already begun to draw attention.