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Srinivas - Engineer turned Singer

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"If you can imagine it, You can achieve it. If you can dream it, You can become it." -William Arthur Ward

If the above quote can be used to describe a person, it can best be attributed to playback singer Srinivas. Filled with dreams of becoming a singer and trained in Carnatic music, the greatest influences on his life were Kishore Kumar, R D Burman, Illayaraja, Pakistani ghazal singer Mehdi Hasan, S D Burman and M S Viswanathan.

His aspiration to become a singer, however, took a long time to bear fruit and he instead became a chemical engineer. Having specialised in textile dyeing, he worked for 10 years before his passion for music got the better of him. In those 10 years, he moved up in his career, shifted to Coimbatore and got married. He approached music maestro Illayaraja, the numero uno in Tamil filmdom in the 80s, who offered him an opportunity. But there too, luck was against Srinivas as a severe throat infection left him with no choice but to decline the offer.

The first chance that came his way was from Mahesh, the music director of ‘Nammavar’. The song ‘Sorgam enbathu namakku’ was a runaway hit and Srinivasan’s career was successfully launched. But his actual break came through A R Rahman, who had taken the film industry by storm with ‘Roja’.

Srinivas had by then moved to Chennai and been singing jingles and tracks. Then came ‘Oo...la la la’ (Minsara Kanavu) and the lively number had people taking note of the new singer. With ‘En Uyire…’ (in Mani Ratnam’s ‘Uyire’), Srinivas was catapulted to fame. So much so that he became known as ‘Uyire’ Srinivas. And since then, there has been no looking back for this talented singer.

Srinivas has sung in Tamil and Malayalam for leading music directors like Illayaraja, Deva, Rahman and Vidyasagar. He made a foray into music direction too - he was one of the five music directors of the Tamil film ‘Ae Nee Romba Azhaga Irukke’. His composition ‘Ini naanum naanillai’ in that film was a major hit. Among his famous albums are ‘Ussele Ussele’ and ‘Paarvai’.