Thoguluva Meenatchi Iyengar Soundararajan, a renowned Indian Carnatic musician and playback singer, enjoyed a remarkable career spanning over six and a half decades. He lent his voice to a plethora of actors and thespians in the South Indian film industry, including M. G. Ramachandran, Sivaji Ganesan, N. T. Rama Rao, Gemini Ganesan, S. S. Rajendran, Jaishankar, Ravichandar, AVM Rajan, Muthuraman, Nagesh, Siva Kumar, Kantha Rao, Rajkumar, Prem Nazir, and A. Nageswara Rao, as well as numerous new generation actors like Kamalahasan, Rajanikanth, Vijayakanth, Satyaraj, Rajesh, Prabhu, and Vijaya Kumar.
He also provided his voice for a vast array of known and unknown heroes and supporting actors, including M.R. Radha, K R Ramaswami, T. Rajendar, V.K. Ramaswami, Thengai Sreenivasan, M.N. Nambiar, Thangavelu, Y.G. Mahendran, R.S. Manohar, S.V. Ashokan, Ranjan, Narasimha Bharathi, Sahasra Namam, T S Balayya, Jagayya, Nagayya, Sreenath, and Shankar. Throughout his illustrious career, TMS sang an astonishing 10,138 songs from 3162 films, covering a diverse range of genres such as devotional, semi-classical, Carnatic, classical, and light music.
He began his career as a classical concert performer in 1945 and went on to record film songs in 11 languages, including Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam, and others. TMS was not only a talented singer but also a skilled lyricist and music composer, having worked on numerous devotional songs. He even served as the music director for the film Bala Parikshai. His peak period as a male playback singer in the South Indian film industry was from 1955 to 1985, during which he sang his first film song in 1946 at the age of 24 and his last with P. Suseela in 2010 at the age of 88.
Tragically, TMS passed away on May 25, 2013, at his residence in Mandaveli, Chennai, due to illness, leaving behind a legacy that spanned nine decades of his life. He was 91 years old at the time of his passing.
