Shankar Ganesh Biography 
Shankar Ganesh is a veteran music composer associated with south Indian films. He predominantly worked in Malayalam and Tamil films. They have been associated with film industry since late 1960s. He is also a regular performer of stage shows, and was performing just 50m away from a bomb took the life of former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi at Preumbathoor. Shankar too faced a similar incident when someone sent him an anonymous parcel by post. He received a tape recorder and a cassette, with a note saying that the cassette contains a new composition. As soon as Shankar played the song, the tape recorder blasted which injured his eyes and hands. He became literally blind and it took 28 long years to restore his eye sight. By that time he lost a glorious career in music.
Shankar belongs to Chennai. He started his music journey working as assistant to M. S. Viswanathan and T. K. Ramamoorthy in the 1960s. It was Jayalalithaa who recommended his name to Devar Films, who gave him the first break through the movie, Magaraasi which starred Jayalalithaa in the lead role. The movie was released in the year 1967. H composed one more film album for the same actress - Vandhale Maharasi in 1973. After struggling with a few compositions till the first half of 1970s, he got his first major break through Aattukara Alamelu in 1977. There was no turning back after that.
In the 1980s he stood as one of the major music composers of Tamil and Malayalam film industry. Naan Yen Pirenden and Idhaya Veenai are his popular compositions. He was at his career peak when the ‘parcel incident’ casted black shadows to his music career. The unhappy incident took place on November 17, 1986. Though plastic surgery restored his hands, he lost complete vision of his left eyes and right eye vision was also blurred. He continued in the music industry till early 1990s. His eye vision was restored in 2014 after long 28 years.
Published: N/A
Updated: April 09, 2016
