Showing all artists born in 1963

Krishnan Nair Shantakumari Chitra or K. S. Chithra is an Indian playback singer. Born on July 27, 1963, in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, into a family of musicians, Chithra’s talent was recognized and nurtured from an early age by her father, the late Krishnan Nair. He was also her first guru (teacher). Her elder sister K. S. Beena is also a singer who has performed in many films as a playback singer.Chithra received her extensive training in Carnatic music from Dr. K. Omanakutty, and got a Masters in Music from the University of Kerala. She was selected for the National Talent Search Scholarship from the Central Government from 1978–1984. She is married to Vijayashankar, an engineer and businessman and settled in Chennai.Popularly and fondly referred to as Chinna Kuyil of South India, Chitra sings Indian classical, devotional, and popular music.She has lent her voice to Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Oriya, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Badaga and Punjabi films. She is a recipient of six National Film Awards (the most by any female singer), five Filmfare Awards South and more than thirty different state film awards. She is the only singer to have won all the 4 South Indian state awards till date. Their only daughter Nandana died aged 8, in a pool accident in April 2011 at Dubai.

Chitra was introduced to Malayalam playback by M. G. Radhakrishnan in 1979 and went on to become a regular singer for many Malayalam musicians, including Raveendran. Attahasam, Snehapurvam Meera and Njaan Ekananu were the first few films which she recorded her songs. She also performed live concerts with K. J. Yesudas in India and abroad and that was a turning point in her career. Veteran music directors such as Raveendran, Shyam, Jerry Amaldev, Mohan Sithara, Kannoor Rajan and Johnson also helped her move up in her career ladder. She made her debut in the Tamil film industry through the song "Poojaikketha Poovithu" from the film Neethana Antha Kuyil, which was composed by Ilaiyaraaja. She was given the title Chinnakuyil after singing the song "Chinna Kuyil Paadum" from the 1985 released film Poove Poochudava. Director Fazil cast her for this song after Ilaiyaraaja got impressed with her song sung in original version in Malayalam for the film Nokkethadhoorathu Kannum Nattu in 1984 directed by himself.

By the mid-eighties, she became the most sought after female singer in Malayalam and Tamil. She recorded many hit songs for the most famous composers in Malayalam and numerous songs for Ilaiyaraaja in Tamil. She has been acredited as the only female singer to have sung the maximum number of songs for the Academy Award winning composer A. R. Rahman for his Tamil film songs. She also sang for veteran composers such as G. Devarajan, M. S. Viswanathan, K. V. Mahadevan, Ouseppachan, Deva, Vidyasagar, Bharadhwaj, Chakravarthy, M. Jayachandran, M.G.Sreekumar, M. M. Keeravani, Hamsalekha, Sharreth, Raj-Koti, Rajan-Nagendra, S. A. Rajkumar, Mani Sharma, Harris Jayaraj, Devisri Prasad and many other south Indian music directors.

She has recorded many memorable Hindi songs for various music directors in Bollywood, namely A. R. Rahman, Anand-Milind, Anu Malik, Rajesh Roshan, Viju Shah, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Naushad, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Jatin-Lalit and many others. She also recorded the Hindi versions of her own Tamil songs sung for A. R. Rahman.

Apart from playback singing, she also appeared among the panel of judges in the singing reality Television shows at Kerala (Idea Star Singer) and Tamil Nadu (Airtel Super Singer Junior).

Ramesh Vinayakam is an Indian music composer and singer.

Ramesh Vinayakam was born Ramasubramaniam to Tamil parents Vinayakam and Valli. He went to A. M. Jain College and later graduated in Commerce from the University of Madras. He learned Carnatic from Rukmini Ramani and Western classical music from Jacob John and completed his studies at the Trinity College, London with a diploma. Vinayakam said that his ambition was to become a composer but he faced opposition from his parents and he instead took up a job as a manager in his father's friend's firm. At the office, he would continue writing pieces of music and following an incident that he considers as the turning point, he decided to pursue his dream. However, he was vainly seeking work and trying for a break, until a friend introduced him to S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, who heard his work and hired him as a "track singer".

Rajiv Menon kumar is an Indian cinematographer and film maker.He is known for directing critically acclaimed Tamil films like Minsara Kanavu and Kandukondain Kandukondain. Rajiv was born in Kochi, Kerala to the popular Malayalam and Tamil film playback singer Kalyani Menon. He had the chance to travel across India at a very young age as his father, a naval officer, got transferred often.

He later joined the film school to study cinematography. Menon did his schooling in Kendriya Vidyalaya, Madras. He met a man named Jason Globerman who inspired him to become cinematographer. He started off as cinematographer with Prathap K. Pothan's Telugu film, Chaithanya. However, he got his major breakthrough as a cinematographer with Mani Ratnam's Bombay; Menon's second film.

George Maryan (born 23 March 1963) is an Indian actor and comedian, who has appeared in Tamil cinema. He started his career in theatre, before working in Tamil cinema and has often collaborated with film-makers A. L. Vijay, Sundar C and Priyadarshan.

Saurabh Shukla (born 5 March 1963) is an Indian film, theatre and television actor, director and screenwriter. He is best known for his work in films like Satya (1998), Barfi! (2012), Jolly LLB (2013), Kick (2014), and PK (2014).

In 2014, he won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Jolly LLB.

Shukla's family left Gorakhpur for Delhi when he was two years old. Here after completing his schooling, he did his graduation from Khalsa College, Delhi. His professional career began in 1984 with his entry into theatre.

Shukla began serious theatre in 1986 with roles in plays like A View From The Bridge (Arthur Miller), Look Back in Anger (John Osborne), Ghashiram Kotwal (Vijay Tendulkar) and Hayvadan. In 1991, he joined the NSD Repertoire Company – the professional wing of the National School of Drama – as actor. The next year he got his first break when Shekhar Kapur, impressed with his work, created a role for him in Bandit Queen.

Shukla also did the role of Vijay Anand's sidekick Gopi in the 1994 Doordarshan crime drama Tehkikaat. The series was directed by

Karan Razdan, but Kapur directed the first episode. He also wrote and acted in Zee TV's 9 Malabar Hill.

These days also he is doing a comic theatre play 2 to Tango, 3 to Jive.

Shukla's biggest break came when he co-wrote the script for Ram Gopal Varma's 1998 cult classic Satya and played the role of gangster Kallu Mama in the film. He won the Star Screen Award for Best Screenplay alongside Anurag Kashyap.

"Why do I make realistic films, like Satya? Because that's the kind of films I like to do. Capturing reality is very difficult and challenging," he said in a 2000 interview to Rediff.com, making it clear that his prefers realism in his scripts. In the same interview he also talked about his preferred genre of film making – comedy:

“ If you carefully see my work, it is all . We usually categorize subjects as comedy and serious. But there is more than just this. Like when we laugh, we sometimes also cry. There can be certain viciousness to this action if there is too much of it. It is the same with romance, which gets too much after a point. There is always a comic element in every situation. ”In 2003, he wrote the screenplay for Calcutta Mail. He received his first award for this film, the Zee Cine Award for Best Screenplay. In 2008, he acted in his first international film, the Golden Globe and Academy Award winning Slumdog Millionaire, as the character Constable Srinivas.

Vidyasagar is an Indian music director and music composer in the Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam film industry. His compositions include "Nee Katru", "Orey Manam","Appadi Podu" as well as classical numbers like "VaralManjal", "Anandam Anandam" or "Kana Kandenadi". Vidyasagar has lately been composing fast numbers for movies starring Tamil stars Ajith, Vikram, Vijay, and R. Madhavan.

Vidyasagar was born into a Telugu Brahmin family of musicians and brought up in Chennai. His father U. Ramachander was a musician who could play eight instruments and his grandfather Varaha Narasimha Murthy was the court Vidhwan for the king of Vijayanagaram Bobili in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Vidyasagar started learning vocal classical music and harmonium from his father at the age of four. When he was eight-years-old Vidyasagar joined Dhanraj Master. In fact both A. R. Rahman and Vidyasagar had joined on the same day. Vidyasagar learnt guitar for 3-4 years there, then the piano. Vidyasagar studied Western classical music at the Trinity College of Music, London.

At age of eleven, Vidyasagar knew how to play a dozen musical instruments and signed up to work as a regular musician for many music directors. Vidyasagar could play for all languages because then, most films had their recording at Chennai. Vidyasagar wanted to then compose his own tunes and have someone else play them. He had assisted various music directors and even done ghost music for some of them. So he had the experience and wanted to compose independently.

Vidyasagar became an independent music director with the song "En Anbe" in the 1989 Tamil movie Poomanam directed by Rajasekhar (Robert). Though Vidyasagar started his music career with a Tamil film, recognition in Tamil music industry came to him much later. He shifted base to Telugu and from 1993 to 1996, Vidyasagar became the top music director in Telugu.

In 1994-95, Vidyasagar was picked up by Tamil actor-director Arjun, with whom he worked for many musically acclaimed films like Jai Hind, Karna, Subash and Sengottai though the movies themselves didnt do well. Vidyasagar composed some of his best music for Arjuns films with some melodic numbers like Malare, Bhoomiae, and Padu Padu some of which went unnoticed. After a not so impressive start in Tamil film industry Vidyasagar was discovered by Malayalam film industry.

From 1996 to 2001 Vidyasagar mainly concentrated on Malayalam films where he became the top music director. In Malayalam right from his first film "Azhagiya Ravanan" to "Meesa Madhavan" he struck the right cord. He has created scores in which ragas and rhythms combined to a good melody, which even bagged him four Kerala State Awards. Vidyasagars love for melody has made him turn to Malayalam film industry time and again, and the songs in hit films like Azhagiya Ravanan, Meesa Madhavan, Gramaphone, CID Moosa and Kilichundan Mambazham were all well received.

In his music he experienced all kinds of song situations and he explored his talent to the maximum in that period. His film Pranayavarnangal is still considered by many one of the best albums ever cut in Malayalam industry. Undoubtedly the talented music director has given his best in malayalam film industry.

His career best was "Millennium Stars"(1999), in Malayalam, which was a WorldClass soundtrack. Some songs were bilingual, and Indias best singers, Dr. K.J. Yesudas and Hariharan sang together in these songs. Songs like "Parayan Nhaan Marannu" and "Shravan Gange" in this movie, were truly of the class of the worlds top soundtracks.

During this period, Vidyasagars song compositions in Tamil movies like 1998 Vijay starrer "Nilaave Vaa" and "Uyirodu Uyiraaga" starring Ajith did catch attention and became quite popular but still the bad patch in Tamil films continued for Vidyasagar during this period. Vidyasagar was probably the only composer in South India who has delivered many super hit songs during his early days but was not considered a success. Even today, some of Vidyasagars prior songs composed for movies are sung by music troupes. But the total success of the film counts ultimately because the music director will be identified with the film.

After a successful Malayalam career he made a come back into Tamil with "Dhill" and "Poovellam Un Vasam". Songs in both of these films were instant hits. Then came "Dhool" which opened new doors in Tamil songs with highly successful folk song Ithanadu Kara Kodumae, and great melody in Aasai Aasai. With "Dhool" and "Dhill" under his belt, Vidyasagar was the talk of the town, for which he had to wait for 13 years. With a successful come back he then went on to give music to some of most successful films of the year 2002-2003 like "Anbe Sivam" and Madhavans "Run" which was a huge musical hit as well as commercial hit. The music composed by Vidyasagar for movies released in 2003 "Iyarkai", "Thithukudhe", "Parthiban Kanavu" were highly popular in spite of the fact that some of these movies failed at the box office. Vijays "Thirumalai" was another hit album.

The year 2004 saw Vidyasagar come up with "Ghilli" which was an instant hit with song Appadi Podu Podu ruling the charts in Tamil music world. This was followed by other hits like "Madurey", "London" and "Ji" in 2004-05. In the year 2005 Vidyasagar received national award for the Telugu movie Swarabhishkam by K. Vishwanath featuring carnatic classical music. Vidyasagar continued his success spree by composing music for Rajnikanth starrer Chandramukhi (he mentions this as a call from God), which was the biggest hit of the year 2005 and a comeback movie for Rajnikanth. The audio of the movie was a best seller and the BGM (Back Ground Music) of the film was also released for the first time in the Indian music industry. He has composed music for the Hollywood movie "Beyond the Soul" directed by Rajeev Anchal. The 2004-05 year also saw him score music for the Hindi movie "Hulchul" from Priyadarshan. With Mozhi, Vidyasagar once again gave listeners some songs like "Katrin Mozhiye" and "Sevvanam Selaikatti" which were instant hits of 2007. In 2008 Vidyasagar came with chart topping songs for "Kuruvi" starring Vijay. "Kuruvi"s music was well received by music critics and Vijays fans. In 2008-2009, Vidyasagar gave multiple melodious hits for the movie Abhium Nanum. The song Va Va En Dhevadhaye, which expresses the bond between a father and daughter is considered to be one of the best lilting melodies of the year.

Vidyasagar is now a well known figure in the Tamil film music, often for his hugely popular numbers composed for movies starring Tamil super stars Vijay and Vikram. As said by Vidyasagar in an interview about recognition for music, "When success eludes you, nobody is bothered about you, what you know and what you could do. That is why mediocrity succeeds. If you are successful, nobody questions your knowledge.". 

Bharath Bala is an Indian film director, screenwriter and film producer based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

Bharat Bala produced the acclaimed Vande Mataram video and Jana Gana Mana Video and heads BharatBala Productions based in Mumbai and Chennai. He directed the critically acclaimed Hari Om in 2004.

He was set to direct and produce Indo-Japanese film, co-produced by Disney, called the The 19th Step, written by and starring Kamal Haasan, but the film was later shelved. 

He directed the music video of official song of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, Jiyo Utho Bado Jeeto. He also directed the opening ceremony of the games.In 2013, he completed his first feature film, Maryan, starring Dhanush. The film went on to receive critical acclaim and was a commercial success.

Thangar Bachan is a Tamil Indian film director and actor, cinematographer and novelist.

Thankar Bachan has often faced criticism for his public speeches and notably had to face the wrath of actresses including Khushboo for saying that, \\\"women who acted mainly for money are akin to prostitutes\\\". He later had to apologise. He also questioned the awarding of the Padmashri award stating that Kamal Haasan was an just an actor to receives Salary to do his acting and hasn\\\'t done any service to the society. Thangar Bachchan went on add that this doesn\\\'t mean Kamal Haasan is a bad actor he is a good actor indeed but there are many artists who really do service to the society and deserve this award far more than Kamal Haasan. During the audio launch of Aridhu Aridhu, Thangar Bachan slammed down some of the filmmakers in Kollywood for unnecessarily wasting more money on songs at foreign locations and technical extravaganzas in films that blatantly lacks a good concept.

Santhana Bharathi is an Indian film actor and director based in Chennai, India. He has directed several films such as Guna and the National Film Award winner, Mahanadhi. He acts and has played supporting roles in films such as Dasavatharam, and Varalaru.

Santhana Bharathi started his film career as a director and then switched to acting. He is now a full-time actor. Both as director and actor he made a mark for himself.