WHY IS VIJAY'S PULI A RARE PHENOMENON?

Back in the 1930s and 40s, the general approach to playback singing in Tamil films was that actors like PU Chinnappa and MK Thyagaraja Bhagavathar used to render their own voices for the songs in their films. That is an almost lost practice now as barring few exceptions, we don’t see actors / actresses singing in their own voices for their onscreen songs.

If there is one hero who takes conscious steps to be original on screen, it should be Kamal Haasan. After 2008, the multifaceted actor has sung all the songs that he has enacted, leaving aside the montage numbers. The last occasion, he used a playback singer was back in 2008 for Kallai Mattum in Dasavatharam.

We have few other actors like Vijay, Dhanush, Simbu, Andrea and Shruti Haasan, who occasionally lend their voices for their onscreen songs. But mostly you still don’t find songs where both the leads sing for themselves. According to our knowledge, there are just 3 such occurrences in the past 15 years. They are:

1. Vijay - Priyanka Chopra

Song name: Ullathai Killathe (Thamizhan) 2002

2. Dhanush - Shruti Haasan

Song name: Kannazhaga (3) 2012

3. Vijay - Shruti Haasan

Song name: Yendi Yendi (Puli)* 2015

* Yet to release