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How
a ninth grade dropout became a celebrity!!
Gana Ulaganathan’s shoot to fame
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Imagine
a daily wage worker in Chennai harbour shooting
to fame with just one song! Gana Ulaganathan
is struggling hard to cope with his celebrity
status. Offers are galore and if inside
reports are true, even Shankar is making
efforts to rope in this guy into his next
film.
However, the way up to Ulaganathan was not
so easy. He made his debut in the Tamil
tinsel town with the song Kummango from
Machi. It was lyricist Kapilan that had
introduced him. With the movie bombing miserably,
the guy went unnoticed—unnoticed till
Mishkin’s Chitthiram Paesudhedi |
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Ulaganathan,
a ninth grade dropout, began his career not as
a singer but as a labourer in Chennai Harbour.
Following some quarrel with the management, he
was sacked from there. But today, now that he
is famous, they want him back there. Singing has
been his hobby and he has sung more than 200 songs
that include devotional songs of Lord Ayyappa. |
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“It
is not just gana songs. I am familiar with
light songs, western pop and also classical
songs. I studied keyboard under Mandolin
Nithya Master and Vaaipaattu from Ammapaettai
Krishnamurthy,” Ulaganathan says with
a shy smile.
By nature, he is a very shy person and doesn’t
have the rugged looks that he wears in the
Vaazha Meen song. “I was damn scared
when they were shooting the scene where
I come lying on a horseback. They asked
me not to punch the horse on its stomach
lest I should be thrown down. Immediately
after the song was shot, Malavika had said
that it had come out well. I didn’t
believe her then,” says the singer
going back to the shooting days. |
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It was Mishkin who got the idea of casting this
man for the song. He was impressed by the way
Ulaganathan made gestures while recording for
the song. It is the same gestures you find on
screen today. |
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Ulaganathan
is mobbed whenever he is spotted in public
places. People want the Vaazha Meen song
to be sung again and again. Invitations
are pouring in from abroad for stage performances.
But the guy remains modest.
He has three movies in hand now—the
Jeeva starrer Pori, Jitthan Ramesh starrer
Madhurai Veeran and the Richard starrer
Mrs Raghavan. |
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He
may be familiar with light music, western
pop or eastern classical but, Ulaganathan
is at home only in gana songs. Says he:
“It’s in gana songs you can
express a spectrum of emotions. And it goes
direct to heart.”
With celebrity thrust on him all of a sudden,
the man is a bit floored. He can’t
forget the days when he was treated shabbily
by the industry, especially the day following
the flop of Macchi. |
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