“Valare Vyakthamaayum Shakthamaayum…”: How VS Became Kerala’s Most Mimicked Politician

There are leaders who earn reverence. There are orators who make headlines. And then, there are a rare few who become part of everyday folklore, not just through what they did, but through the way they did it. Velikkakathu Sankaran Achuthanandan, or simply VS, belonged firmly to that last category.

To speak of VS merely as a politician would be like describing an elephant by only its shadow. Yes, he was the 11th Chief Minister of Kerala, a veteran Communist, a tireless campaigner against corruption and corporate overreach.

But for an entire generation of Malayalis, especially those who grew up in the age of stage shows and television comedy skits, Achuthanandan was first encountered not in the Assembly, but on the mimicry stage.

The Mannerism That Launched a Thousand Careers

“Valare vyakthamaayum shakthamaayum parayukayaanenkil…”

The sentence, wrapped in baritone certainty, delivered with a trademark shoulder twitch and a subtle chin lift, was more than just a political preface; it was a scriptwriter’s gift and a mimic’s dream.

Also Read | Communist Veteran, Mass Leader VS Achuthanandan Dies At 101

From school kids to senior mimicry artists, VS’s voice, accent, deliberate pace, and that iconic shoulder dip became cultural artefacts in their own right. His pauses were as imitable as his Policies.

He didn’t just speak. He announced. With the kind of determined drawl that could silence a room or set it into peals of laughter, depending on who was delivering the line.

The mimicry wave of the 1990s and early 2000s in Kerala had many heroes, but Achuthanandan was undoubtedly one of its greatest patrons—unknowingly so.

Several now-famous comedy artists openly admit that their first successful skit involved mimicking “Achumaama”, a nickname VS wore anyway in the public imagination like a red shawl over his kurta.

Unlike many public figures who bristled at parody, Achuthanandan was never visibly perturbed by the theatrical extensions of his persona. If anything, it helped him become even more memorable. He knew the distinction between caricature and contempt, and the people of Kerala knew too.
He wasn’t being mocked. He was being honoured, in the only way Kerala knows best: through imitation, exaggeration, and endearment.

Also Read | VS Achuthanandan: Communist To The Core And A Relentless Crusader For The People

And there was something deeply human, even cinematic, about it. Here’s a man who had lost both parents before adolescence, stopped studying after seventh grade, worked in a coir factory, and yet, went on to lead the state as its oldest-ever Chief Minister.

And now, decades later, a six-year-old child with barely any understanding of Marxism could perfectly mimic his body language while declaring something “valare vyakthamaaya karyamaanu.” That’s not political fame. That’s pop-cultural immortality.

In what came as a pleasant surprise to both his admirers and the film industry, V.S. Achuthanandan made his debut as a dubbing artist in the 2016 Malayalam political film Campus Diary, which had inspired generations of mimicry artists.

VS was, undoubtedly, an institution. But the reason he stood apart from the stiff relics of political history is that he was so eminently human, even unintentionally comic, in his manner.

In every shuffling gait, every raised eyebrow, every tightly packed sentence, he gave Kerala a character to remember.

When he walked into Sabarimala at age 84 without medical support, he inspired. When he took on the land mafia and the lottery cartels, he delivered. But when he tilted his head ever so slightly and said, “Ini njan oru chodyam chothikkatte…”, he became a legend.

In the end, VS Achuthanandan will be remembered not just for the bills he passed or the policies he proposed, but for the thousands of voices that now echo his, on countless stages, TV screens, and WhatsApp forwards. His was a voice that once stirred debates in the Assembly—and now stirs smiles in dining rooms.

As Kerala says goodbye to its comrade of the people, it also remembers a performer who never stepped on a mimicry stage but helped create a whole industry of impersonators. Few can claim such a legacy. Fewer still can make it look unintentional.

Achumaama may be gone.
But his voice?
Valare vyakthamaayum shakthamaayum parayukayaanenkil…
It’s here to stay.