I was born and brought up in a village in Tamil Nadu called Veliyur. My father was an Arabic teacher and he made sure that I studied well. Since childhood, I was always fascinated by television sets, but it was a rare sight those days.
Having a TV was considered a luxury in our village. A cable or DTH connection was a distant dream. Our neighbours had the one, though. Till I completed high school, I used to go and watch TV at their place, but whenever they had to leave their house, they would ask me to leave. For just watching TV, I had to go through a lot of challenges.
After completing high school, I moved to Salem, where I found a vast difference in lifestyle between the people living in cities and the villages. Salem was the first city I had ever gone to.It was there I came to know that there are more TV channels apart from Doordarshan. During my study period in Salem, I got selected as a VJ in a local media house.
While working there, people used to appreciate me for my work which kept me motivated. Later, I tried my hands at scriptwriting and was soon promoted as a sports correspondent, entertainment correspondent, and later an anchor. My shows started to gain popularity and used to get good TRPs. I began to get recognition as one of the best anchors of Tamil Nadu. I got few awards also for best television anchor and VJ.
But, in 2017, life took an ugly turn. I met with an accident and as a result, the right side of my face got paralysed. I struggled to even speak. Doctors said it would take months or even years to come even close to basic levels of speaking. My whole world had crumbled. Questions like “Would I be able to speak again? Is my career over?” would pop into my mind. I lost the ability to speak. My voice became scratchy and high. Most of the people who were unaware of the accident assumed I was drunk when I spoke. But this couldn’t stop me from pursuing what I loved, for long.
After one month, I started showing signs of recovery by practising words in Tamil and Tirukkuṟaḷ, besides tongue twisters. Slowly days passed by, and I was moving close to my goal once again. Within months, I started doing shows like I did before and landed a job in News 18 Tamil Nadu–a Network18 group in 2019. Over time, I have also been part of few Tamil movies, where I did small but pivotal roles. I’m soon going to debut on the big screen in the South Indian film industry.
The period after the accident was a tough time, I must say. But it made me a more robust and better person with each passing day.
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