Manayangath Subramanian Viswanathan , also known as M.S.V.), is a Music Director from South India. He is popularly known as "Mellisai Mannar" (Tamil for "the King of Light Music"). His major works over the past five decades have been in Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu films. He has also acted and sung in a few films.

Early life

Viswanathan was born on June 24,1928 to Manayangath Subramanian and Narayanikutty (or Naanikutty) in Elappully village in Palakkad, Kerala, India. He lost his father when he was four. He was saved by his grandfather when his mother decided to kill him and herself as an escape from abject poverty and lack of support. He sold refreshments in a movie theater during his childhood and later learned music from Neelakanda Bhagavathar. He gave his first stage performance in Trivandrum when he was 13 years old.

Since young, T. K. Ramamoorthy was a good violinist and played violin in the orchestra of C. R. Subburaman at HMV even at the age of fourteen and continued with him later in film music as well.
M. S. Viswanathan had always wanted to be an actor and singer, but was not successful.He had done a few small roles in stage dramas.The famous music composer in the 50s, T. R. Papa, who was a violinist for the doyen of the Tamil film music, S. V. Venkatraman when he met the young struggling Viswanathan, took a liking to him and arranged a job for him as an errand boy for S. V. Venkatraman's musical troupe. In that company of all musicians Viswanathan realized that he had the inclination and the potential for composing music.He thereafter joined S. M. Subbaiah Naidu and at times assisted him.He then joined C. R. Subburaman where he met T.K.Ramamoorthy. Viswanathan was handling the harmonium while Ramamoorthy was handling the violin for C.R.Subburaman. There was also T. G. Lingappa in that troupe as a violinist who also became a renowned music composer on his own in the 50s. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.