Potpourri of tidbits about Tamil cinema - T. M. Soundararajan

“Remix is retrograde” – T. M. Soundararajan

The veteran and noted playback singer T. M. Soundararajan is the only singer in the Tamil film industry who can pronounce the Tamil words with perfection and who can bring the suitable emotions in his majestic manly voice. I can reiterate this statement at any time. The great singer, endearingly called TMS, is one of the closest in my circle of friends in the industry. I’ve been mingling with his family very closely for the past 38 years. I am enslaved by his entrancing voice and singing.

The letter ‘T’ stands for the village Thokuluva. The name is related to the regimen diet given to pregnant women in Saurashtra. ‘M’ stands for Meenakshi Iyengar, father of Soundararajan. The ‘utsavamoorthy’ of ‘Azhagar koil’ is called Soundararajan. Meenakshi Iyengar gave the name of this deity to his son. TMS belongs to Madurai. He is the second-born of the couple Meenakshi Iyengar – Venkatammaal. Danalakshmi, Srinivasan and Krishnamoorthy are his siblings. TMS was born on 24-3-1923. His father was a purohit and a bhajan singer. TMS got married to Sumitra on 28-3-1946.

His debut song ‘Radhe nee ennai vittu …’ in the film ‘Krishna vijayam’, released in the year 1946 announced the arrival of the great singer. He has around 10,000 songs to his credit out of which around 2,000 are devotional songs. He has seven children, four sons and three daughters – Balasubramaniam, Paulraj, Selvakumar, Parthibhan, Chitralekha, Chandrika and Mallika. Paulraj and Selvakumar are blessed with the same voice as their father’s. They are giving stage programs in light music. His grandchildren and great grandchildren total sixteen in number.