Top Malayalees

About Santosh Sivan

2008-08-28T21:38:00.007+05:30

Santosh Sivan

"My father is my director, mentor.. inspiration"

Santosh Sivan (born in Trivandrum, Kerala) is an Indian cinematographer and film director. Sivan is the older brother of film director Sanjiv Sivan and younger brother of director Sangeeth Sivan. Their father, Sivan, is a renowned director and cinematographer of Malayalam documentary films, and runs the Trivandrum-based Sivan Studio.

Sivan grew up in the city of Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, India, where he attended Loyola School and Mar Ivanios College. He graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India in 1984. In December 1995 he became a founding member of the Indian Society of Cinematographers.

Selected filmography

* Tahaan (2008)
* Before the Rains (2007)
* Prarambha (2007)
* Ananthabhadram (2005)
* Navarasa (2005)
* Asoka (2001)
* The Terrorist (1999)
* Malli (1998)
* Halo (1996)

Awards

National Film Awards

* 1991 - Perumthachan (Malayalam) Best Cinematography
* 1996 - Kalapani (Malayalam) Best Cinematography
* 1996 - Halo National Film Award for Best Children's Film[1]
* 1998 - Iruvar (Tamil) Best Cinematography
* 1999 - Dil Se (Hindi) Best Cinematography

Kerala State Film Awards

* 1992 - Aham (Best Cinematography Colour)
* 1995 - Kalapani (Best Cinematography)
* 2005 - Anandabhadram (Best Cinematography)

Filmfare Awards

* 2001 - Halo Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie

ABOUT K. J. YESUDAS

2008-08-14T19:19:00.000+05:30

K. J. YESUDAS

Kattassery Joseph Yesudas, (born January 10, 1940) is an Indian classical musician and a leading playback singer.

K.J. Yesudas was born in Fort Kochi, Kerala, to Augustine Joseph and Elizabeth. His father, who was a well-known Malayalam classical musician and stage actor, was his first guru. Later he joined the Music Academy in Thrippunithura and underwent training. For a brief period, he was with Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar, a maestro of Classical Music. He was scoffed at for being a Christian learning Carnatic music . He has learned Hindustani Music, also. His voice lends itself well to both Indian classical, devotional, and popular songs. He has recorded songs for most Indian languages except Assamese and Kashmiri.In his heyday, he was known as the Jim Reeves of South India. Fans term his voice as nothing short of "divine".

Yesudas began his career in playback singing in Kollywood in the early 60's and by mid 70's he entered Bollywood. He has bagged seven National Film Awards for the best singer in the Indian film industry. In 2006 he sung 16 film songs in four South Indian languages on the same day at AVM Studio, Chennai.

Yesudas has performed in many major cities around the world. In his music concerts in theMiddle East he sings Arabic songs in the Carnatic style. He frequently dons the role of a cultural ambassador of India through his numerable performances abroad by promoting Indian Music. He is the only singer who has been accorded the title Asthana Gayakan (Official singer) of Kerala State. He has been awarded the Padma Sri (1973) and Padma Bhushan (2002).

In 1965, he was invited by the Soviet Union government to perform at music concerts in various cities in the USSR and also sang a Russian song over Radio Kazakhstan. In 1970 he was nominated to head the Sangeetha Nataka Academy of Kerala and he ended up being the youngest person ever to occupy that post. In 1971, Yesudas with his musical troupe travelled all over Kerala to raise funds for the Indian Prime Minister's National Defense Fund during the Indo-Pakistani War. He also became Senate member in the International Parliament for Safety and Peace . He has taken the words of Sree Narayana Guru, "One Religion, One Caste for all humans" to heart. On November 14, 1999, Yesudas was presented with an honorary award by UNESCO for "Outstanding Achievements in Music and Peace" at the "Music for Peace" event in Paris, a concert held to mark the dawn of the new millennium and whose attendees included artistes such as Lionel Richie, Ray Charles, Montserrat Caballé, and Zubin Mehta.

The song "Vellai pura" (pathos version) which he sang frm the film "puthu kavithai" was an alltime hit and one can feel the impact of a Love failure when hearing this song.

Scholarship

* Completed the Ganabooshanam course at R.L.V. Music Academy, Thripunithura, Cochin
* Graduated from the Sree Swathithirunal Music Academy, Trivandrum
* Trained under well-known musicians like K.R. Kumaraswamy (former principal of the Music College, Kochi), Kunjuvelan Aasan (a disciple of Nagaswera Vidwan Rajaratnam Pillai), Augustine Joseph, Ramakutti Bagavathar, Sivaraman Nayar, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer and Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar.

Yesudas and his wife Prabha have three sons Vinod, Vijay, and Vishal.

He currently lives in Houston, Texas, U.S.A

Titles, Honours and Major Awards

* Padma Bhushan by President of India in 2002.
* Padma Sri by President of India in 1973.
* Doctorate by Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu in 1989.
* D.Litt by Kerala University, Kerala in 2003.
* Asthana Gayakan (Official Singer) by Government of Kerala
* Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1992.
* Asthana Vidwan (Official Teacher) by Udupi, Sringeri, and Raghavendra mutts.
* Sangeetha Sagaram (Music Ocean) in 1989.
* Sangeetha Chakravarthy (Music Emperor) in 1988 by Pallavi Narasimachary.
* Sangeetha Raja (Music King) by Chembai in 1974.
* Sangeetha Ratna (Music Jewel) by Lt. Governor of Pondicherry M.M. Lakhera.
* Swathi Ratnam (Swathi Jewel).
* Sapthagiri Sangeetha Vidwanmani in 2002.
* Bhakti Sangita Geetha Sironmani in 2002.
* Gaana Gandharva.
* Geetanjali Award by The ex-president of India Neelam Sanjiva Reddy.
* Sur Singar Samsad Award in 1976.
* Kalaimamani Award by Government of Tamil Nadu.
* Star of India Award by Lt. Governor of Pondicherry M.M. Lakhera.
* National Citizens Award in 1994.
* Mar Gregorius awrd Governor RL Bhatia in 2006.
* The Annual Latha Mangeshkar Award by Government of Madhya Pradesh in 1992.
* Dr. Pinnamaneni and Seethadevi Foundation Award in 2000.
* Senate member in the International Parliament for Safety and Peace, an organization incorporated in the United States.
* An Honorary award for "Outstanding Achievements in Music and Peace" by UNESCO in 1999.
* National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer seven times by the Government of India.
* State Film Awards Twenty three times for the best Playback singer by the Government of Kerala.
* State Film awards Eight times for the best Playback singer by the Government of Tamil Nadu.
* State Film awards Five Times for the best Playback singer by the Government of Karnataka.
* State Film awards Six times for the best Playback singer by the Government of Andra Pradesh.
* State Film awards One time for the best Playback singer by the Government of West Bengal.
National Awards

Dr. Yesudas has won the national award seven times which is a record no singer has equalled, let alone surpassed.

* 1972, Film Name: Achanum Bappayum, Language: Malayalam, First line of the song: Manushyan mathangale
* 1973, Film Name: Gaayathri, Language: Malayalam, First line of the song: Padmatheerthame unaru
* 1976, Film Name: Chitchor, Language: Hindi, First line of the song: Gori thera gaon bada
* 1982, Film Name: Megha Sandesam, Language: Telugu, First line of the song: Aakasa desana
* 1987, Film Name: Unnikale Oru Kadha Parayam, Language: Malayalam, First line of the song: Unnikale oru kadha parayam
* 1991, Film Name: Bharatham, Language: Malayalam, First line of song: Rama kadha gaana layam
* 1993, Film Name: Sopanam, Language: Malayalam, First line of the song: Sopanam

In 1980 Yesudas established the Tharangni Studio at Trivandrum. In 1992 the office and studio were moved to Chennai and the company was incorporated in the US in 1998. Tharangni Studio and Tharangni Records became a recording center in Kerala which, for the first time, brought out audio cassettes of Malayalam film songs in stereo. The record company also had a voice mixing studio in Chennai, Studio27. The studio continues to produce and present events of Yesudas both for film and Indian classical music concerts throughout the world.

About Unnikrishnan

2008-08-05T20:11:00.000+05:30

Unnikrishnan

Unnikrishnan is an Indian musician. He was born on 9 July 1966 to K.Radhakrishnan and Dr.Harini Radhakrishnan in Kerala. He is married to Priya, a Bharathanatyam and Mohiniyattam dancer. He has a son named Vasudev Krishna.

Initiated into Carnatic Music at age of 12 by Seshadri, Unnikrishnan was inspired by Sangita Kalanidhi Dr. S. Ramanathan. He now receives guidance from Savitri Satyamurthy and Calcutta Krishnamurthy.

He has also acquired "Veenai Dhanammal Bani" from Sangita Kalanidhi T. Brinda and T.Viswanathan.

Unnikrishnan attended a special workshop for six months on "Veena Dhanammal Bhani" under Sangeetha Kalanidhi T.Brinda and Sangeetha Kalanidhi Dr.T.Vishwanathan.

He holds a B.Com degree from the Madras University. Unnikrishnan studied his General Law and Post Graduate Diploma in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations. He was employed as an executive in Parrys Confectionery Ltd. from 1991 to 1994 and resigned to become a professional singer. He is well known as a playback singer in South Indian cinema and is currently a judge of the Asianet show, Idea Star Singer. He participates in Carnatic concerts during the December Season in Chennai.

About Hariharan

2008-08-05T19:18:00.000+05:30

Hariharan

Hariharan born 3 April 1955 in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala) is an Indian playback singer in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu movies, an established ghazal singer, and one of the pioneers of Indian fusion music.
Hariharan grew up in Mumbai, and has bachelor degrees in science and law. The son of renowned Carnatic vocalists, Shrimati Alamelu and the late H.A.S. Mani (full name:anantha Subramani Iyer), Hariharan inherited his parents' musical talents. Alamelu was Hariharan's first guru (mentor). From here he picked up Carnatic music skills. He was also exposed to Hindustani music from a young age. In his teens, inspired by the songs of Mehdi Hassan and Jagjit Singh, Hariharan developed a passion for ghazals and started training in Hindustani music from Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan. He used to put in nine hours of singing practice everyday. The committed Hariharan also put heart and soul into learning Urdu when he decided to become a ghazal singer. He has perfected his Urdu diction to such standards that even his audiences in Lucknow, the heartland of the language, have been wowed over.

In 1977, Hariharan bagged the top prize in the All-India Sur Singaar competition and was promptly signed on by the late music director Jaidev to sing for the Hindi film Gaman. His debut song "Ajeeb Saane He Mujh Par Qarar" in that movie became such a hit that it won Hariharan an Uttar Pradesh state award, as well as a Best Singer National Award nomination, and Hariharan's playback singing career took off.

At the start of his career, Hariharan did the concert circuit and also performed on TV. He sang for a number of TV serials (e.g., Junoon). In addition, he cut several successful ghazal albums, writing most of the scores himself. One of Hariharan's first ghazal albums was "Abshaar-e-Ghazal" with Asha Bhonsle, which went gold in sales. Another outstanding ghazal album was "Gulfam", which not only hit double platinum in sales but also fetched Hariharan the Diva Award for the Best Album of the Year in 1994.

Hariharan entered the world of Tamil films in 1992 introduced by debutant music director A.R Rahman with the patriotic song "Thamizha Thamizha" in Maniratnam's film Roja. He was judged best male playback singer in the 1995 Tamil Nadu State Government Film Awards for his soulful rendition of the song "Uyire Uyire" also by music director A.R Rahman in Maniratnam's Bombay (Hariharan sang the song with K.S. Chitra). "Uyire Uyire" is better known as "Tu Hi Re" in its Hindi version. Hariharan has been one of the most trusted singer of A R Rahman and has sung many songs for him in long list of movies that includes Roja, Sapnay, Jeans, Hindustani, Dil hi dil me, Taal, Bombay, Rangeela, Nayak and many more . In 1998, Hariharan won the national award for the best playback singer for the soulful rendition of the song "mere dushman mere bhai" from the Hindi movie Border, composed by Anu Malik.

The year 1996 was a career milestone; he released the fusion album Colonial Cousins with Bombay-based composer/singer Leslie Lewis. This was the first Indian act to be featured on MTV Unplugged. It won a string of awards including the MTV Indian Viewers' Choice award.

Hariharan has also acted in a Tamil film with Khushboo, titled Power of Women & also played cameo roles in the Tamil film Boys & the Malayalam film Millennium Stars.

In 2004, he was awarded the prestigious Padma Shri and Yesudas Award for his outstanding performance in music

About Santhosh George Kulangara

2008-08-04T22:09:00.000+05:30

Santhosh George Kulangara

Santhosh George Kulangara, (born December 25, 1971) is going to be the first space tourist from India. He has been confirmed along with 37 others by space tour operator Virgin Galactic’s first program for 2009, thereby becoming the First space tourist from India.

Santhosh George Kulangara was born in Marangattupilly village, Kottayam District in Kerala, India. . He is a post graduate and trained cinematographer He is married to Soncy and father of two children – Sarika and George. His parents are retired high school teachers. His father V.J. George Kulangara, is the founder of Labour India Publications Ltd..

He is also a businessman in the area of education, tourism and Information Technology. He is the owner and Managing Director of Labour India groups of companies, co-founder of Labour India Gurukulam Public School, International Gurukulam School in Wagamon and Bluefield International Academy, West Virginia in the US. He is the Chairman and Managing Director of Supplement Communications (P) Ltd, an evening newspaper and Labour India Software Laboratories etc. At present he is interested in the preservation of Kerala's heritage and promoting it to the foreigners. For this purpose, he has built a Heritage Resort at Vaikom named 'Kerala Palace'.

He has become the first resident Indian to buy a US$ 200,000 for a sub-orbital ride with British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic spaceliner. space flight is being designed to last two and a half hours in space, during which the spaceship will detach from the mother ship at 50,000 ft (15,000 m), the cruising altitude of Concorde. For this purpose, he successfully completed medical test and four days of training including Zero gravity at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida and three-day pre-flight preparation, bonding and training onsite at the spaceport at Mojave desert in California. A specially designed aircraft was used for the training program.

In January 2008, Virgin Galactic unveiled a model of SpaceShipTwo, for carrying tourists into space and said that construction of the actual flight should be completed in 2008 and expected to take-off in 2009.

About Arundhati Roy

2008-07-31T14:47:00.000+05:30

Arundhati Roy

Suzanna Arundhati Roy[1] (born November 24, 1961) is an Indian novelist, writer and activist. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her first novel, The God of Small Things and in 2002, the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize.

Roy was born in Shillong, Meghalaya[2] to a Keralite Syrian Christian mother, the women's rights activist Mary Roy, and a Bengali father, a tea planter by profession. She spent her childhood in Ayemenem or Aymanam in Kerala, and went to school at Corpus Christi, Kottayam, followed by the Lawrence School, Lovedale in the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. She then studied architecture at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, where she met her first husband, architect Gerard DaCunha.

Roy first attracted attention when she criticised Shekhar Kapur's film Bandit Queen, based on the life of Phoolan Devi, charging Kapur with exploiting Devi and misrepresenting both her life and its meaning.[3]

Roy began writing her first novel, The God of Small Things, in 1992, completing it in 1996. The book is semi-autobiographical and a major part captures her childhood experiences in Ayemenem or Aymanam[citation needed]. The book received the 1997 Booker Prize for Fiction and was listed as one of the New York Times Notable Books of the Year for 1997.[4] The book reached fourth position on the New York Times Bestsellers list for Independent Fiction.[5] She received half a million pounds as an advance, and rights to the book were sold in 21 countries.

The God of Small Things received good reviews[6], including one from John Updike in The New Yorker.[7] However, Carmen Callil, chair of the Booker judges panel in 1996, called The God of Small Things "an execrable book" and said it should never have reached the shortlist.[8]
Roy wrote the screenplays for In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones (1989) and Electric Moon (1992) in which she also appeared as a performer, and a television serial The Banyan Tree. She also wrote the documentary DAM/AGE: A Film with Arundhati Roy (2002).
In early 2007, Roy announced she would begin work on a second novel.[9]

About M. Night Shyamalan

2008-07-30T23:21:00.000+05:30

M. Night Shyamalan

Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan (born August 6, 1970), known professionally as M. Night Shyamalan, is an Indian American writer-director of major studio films, known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots that usually climax with a twist ending. He is also known for filming his movies (and staging his plots) in and around Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Shyamalan released his first film, Praying with Anger, in 1992 while he was a New York University student. His second movie, the major feature film Wide Awake, made in 1995 but not released until 3 years later, failed to find financial success. Shyamalan gained international recognition when he wrote and directed 1999's The Sixth Sense, which was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. He followed The Sixth Sense by writing and directing Unbreakable, released in 2000, which received mixed reviews. His 2002 film Signs gained both critical and financial success, but The Village (2004) was a critical disappointment whose box office fell hard after a strong opening weekend, and Lady in the Water (2006) performed even worse. His next and latest film, The Happening (2008), did financially better than his previous effort but was also panned by critics and grossed in its entire domestic run only slightly more than what Signs made its opening weekend.

Shyamalan was born in Mahe, Pondicherry, India.[1] His father, Nelliyattu C. Shyamalan, a physician, is a Malayali, and his mother, Jayalakshmi, is Tamil and an obstetrician and gynecologist by profession.[2] In the 1960s, after medical school (at the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research in Pondicherry) and the birth of their first child, Veena, Shyamalan's parents moved to the United States. Shyamalan's mother returned to India to spend the last five months of her pregnancy with him at her parents' home in Chennai (Madras).

Shyamalan spent his first six weeks in Pondicherry and then was raised in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania, an affluent suburb of Philadelphia. He attended the private Catholic grammar school Waldron Mercy Academy, which his parents chose for its academic discipline,[3] followed by The Episcopal Academy, a private Episcopalian high school also in Lower Merion. Shyamalan went on to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, in Manhattan, graduating in 1992. It was here that he made up his middle name.

Shyamalan had an early desire to be a filmmaker when he was given a Super-8 camera at a young age. Though his father wanted Shyamalan to follow in the family practice of medicine, his mother encouraged Shyamalan to follow his passion.[4] By the time he was 17, Shyamalan, who had been a fan of Steven Spielberg, had made 45 home movies. Beginning with The Sixth Sense, he has included a scene from one of these childhood films on each DVD release of his films, which he feels represents his first attempt at the same kind of film (with the exception of Lady in the Water).

Shyamalan made his first film, the semiautobiographical drama Praying with Anger, while still an NYU student, using money borrowed from family and friends.[5] It was screened at the Toronto Film Festival on September 12, 1992,[6] and played commercially at one theater for one week.[6] When the film debuted at the Toronto Film Festival, Shyamalan was introduced by David Overbey who predicted that the world would see more of Shyamalan in the years to come. Praying with Anger has also been shown on Canadian television. Filmed in Chennai, it is his only film to be shot outside of Pennsylvania.

Shyamalan wrote and directed his second movie, Wide Awake, in 1995, though it was not released until 1998.[7] His parents were the film's associate producers. The drama dealt with a ten-year-old Catholic schoolboy (Joseph Cross) who, after the death of his grandfather (Robert Loggia), searches for God. The film's supporting cast included Dana Delany and Denis Leary as the boy's parents, as well as Rosie O'Donnell, Julia Stiles, and Camryn Manheim. Wide Awake was filmed in a school Shyamalan attended as a child[8] and earned 1999 Young Artist Award nominations for Best Drama, and, for Cross, Best Performance.[9] Only in limited release, the film grossed $305,704 in theaters.[10]

That same year Shyamalan wrote the screenplay for Stuart Little.

In 1993, Shyamalan married Indian psychologist Bhavna Vaswani, a fellow student whom he had met at NYU[11] and with whom he has had two daughters. As of early-2008, the family resides in Willistown, Pennsylvania, near Shyamalan's usual shooting site of Philadelphia.

About Shashi Tharoors

2008-07-30T22:47:00.000+05:30

Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor ( born 9 March 1956 in London) was an Indian diplomat at the United Nations. In 2006, he was the official candidate of India for the office of United Nations Secretary-General, and came second out of seven official candidates in the race. Tharoor served as the UN Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information between June 2002 and February 2007, during the term of Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He is an author, journalist, and fellow of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Tharoor is an Indian national, from the state of Kerala.

In India, Tharoor studied at Montfort School in Yercaud, Bombay Scottish School and Campion School in Mumbai, attended High School at St. Xavier’s Collegiate School in Kolkata and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. While at St. Stephen’s Tharoor was actively involved in the Debating Society, which is where he cultivated his Received Pronunciation accent, Quiz Club, and Students’ Union, of which he was the elected President. He then completed a Ph.D at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Massachusetts, where he also earned two Master’s degrees.

Since 1978, Tharoor has been working for the United Nations, serving with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, whose Singapore office he headed during the “boat people” crisis. He began as a senior official at the United Nations headquarters in New York in 1989, where, until late 1996, he was responsible for peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia.

From January 1997 to July 1998, he was executive assistant to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. He was appointed director of communications and special projects in the office of the Secretary-General, and in January 2001, he was appointed by the Secretary-General as interim head of the Department of Public Information. On 1 June 2002, he was confirmed as the Under Secretary General for Communications and Public Information. In this capacity, he is responsible for the communication strategy, enhancing the image and effectiveness of the UN. In 2003, the Secretary-General appointed him United Nations Coordinator for Multilingualism.