Actor and film critic Kathi Mahesh succumbed to the injuries he had sustained in a road accident on the Chennai-Kolkata highway in Nellore district, at Chennai on Saturday, police sources here said.
The 43-year-old satirist had sustained grievous injuries when the car driven by his friend was involved in a rear-end collision with a container truck at Chandrasekarapuram, near Kodavalur, on June 26.
Mahesh, an alumni of Hyderabad Central University, was first rushed to a private hospital in Nellore and later shifted to a private hospital in Chennai for better treatment.
Controversies
Being outspoken, Mahesh, who hailed from Chittoor district, had landed himself in several controversies, including the one for allegedly hurting the religious sentiments with his remarks on the epic Ramayana, and had been banned by the Hyderabad police from entering the city for six months in July 2018.
He had also appeared on the Telugu reality TV show, ‘Bigg Boss’.
He had backed the YSRCP in the Tirupati Lok Sabha byelection.
Mahesh, a promoter of alternative cinema, had proved his mettle as a director with ‘Edari Varsham’, which was based on Devarakonda Balagangadhara Tilak’s story, ‘Oori Chivara Illu’, industry sources said.
Prior to that, he had made three documentaries – Our Water, Shubhodayam, and God’s Own People.
Film debut
He had floated ‘Navatarangam Chalanachitram’ for crowdfunding. He had made his acting debut with Sampoornesh Babu’s ‘Hrudaya Kaleyam’. He was the co-writer of the film, ‘Minugurulu’, the “first Telugu script to be preserved in the Oscar Library’s permanent core collection and the first Telugu film to compete for the Academy Awards’ best feature film.”
He had worked in, among other films, ‘Nene Raju Nene Mantri’, ‘Amma Rajyam Lo Kadapa Biddalu’, ‘Kobbari Matta’ and ‘Krack’.
