KV Mahadevan – Everyone’s mama

KV Mahadevan, the maternal uncle of MS Viswanathan was born on 14 March 1918 in Nagercoil in the Kanyakumarie district. He made his debut as a music composer in the 1942 film, Manonmani and slowly worked his way to the top, helped by his humility and simplicity.

Although he was Mama to MS Viswanathan, he was called by most people in the industry as Mama, this name overshadowing his screen title Thirai Isai Thilagam.

KV Mahadevan was also a playback singer and one of his songs is from the Konndukilli – the only film to have Sivaji Ganesan and MG Ramachandran sharing the lead role.

KV Mahadevan is one of the few music composers whose standard practice was asking lyricists to write the lyric first and then he would set the tune to the words. He composed his songs throughout his career in the same way.

He won the first national award for Best Music for the 1967 film Kandhan Karunai. He shone the brightest when he scored music for religious or semi-religious films. Included among these were Thiruvaillaiyaadal, Saraswathi Sabadham, Kandhan Karunai, Thillaana Mohanambal and Athiparasakthi.

KV Mahadevan passed away at the age of 83 on 21 June 2001 in Chennai.