The two persons Na Muthukumar considered as his mentors - his aan thaaigal, as he used to call them - Balu Mahendra, and the poet Arivumathi, symbolize each of his two passions, cinema and literature.

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Na MuthuKumar birth anniversary: 16 facts you probably didn't know about the talented lyricist

On the occasion of Muthukumar's 44th birth anniversary, we give you a photo-tribute about the gifted poet.

Team CE

Updated:12th Jul, 2019 at 5:44 PM

Muthukumar lost his mother at the age of four, and was raised by his father, Nagarajan, who was his inspiration, and the main subject of his book/tribute published in 2012, Anilaadum Mundril.

His father, a tamil teacher, was a voracious reader. He read a dozen books per week and collected about 5000 rare books. Thus, Muthukumar was raised in literature and poetry, in which he found solace.

The path of literature led Muthukumar to a Masters in Tamil literature and, later, a double doctorate.

Muthukumar began his career working as an AD to Balu Mahendra for four years. He attributes all his learnings about life, travel, and cinema to this stint with the legendary filmmaker.

Muthukumar landed his first break, when he got the chance to write lyrics in the film Veera Nadai, directed by Seeman. The film was delayed, and so his 1st song for the film released as his 32nd song.

In addition to penning the song, Yethi Yethi, for Gautham Menon's Vaaranam Aayiram, Muthukumar also helped GVM with the dialogues for the romantic drama.

Na Muthukumar has been officially credited as a dialogue writer in quite a few films, including the Ajith-starrer, Kireedam (2007).

In addition to his achievements in cinema, Muthukumar has written 16 books during his time. Some of them are Dhoosigal, Pattampoochi Virpavan, Newtonin Moondram Vidhi, and Graamam Nagaram Maanagaram.

Na Muthukumar has got the most number of Filmfare awards for best lyricist in Tamil. He received them for the films, Ayan, Veyil, Thangameenkal, and Saivam.

An interesting trivia about the lyricist is that he had written about 40 songs with the variations of the word 'Vizhigal' as the first word, all of which went on to become chartbusters.

Also, Muthukumar could recite the complete lyrics of all of his 1000+ songs by heart at any point of time. He revealed this information in an interview with a popular TV channel.

Muthukumar won the National award for best lyrics for two consecutive years. He got the first award in 2013 for Aananda Yazhai, composed by Yuvan, for Ram's Thangameenkal.

Muthukumar won his 2nd National award in 2014 for the song, Azhage Azhagu, in AL Vijay's Saivam, which was composed by GV Prakash.

Apart from Yuvan, GV Prakash was also Na Muthukumar's most frequent collaborator. The lyricist has written nearly 200 songs for the actor-musician.

One of the biggest dream of Muthukumar was to set up a modern library, to house his collection of one lakh books that he inherited from his father, and to open it for literature students.

Na Muthukumar's last movie as lyricist was Sarvam Thaala Mayam (Maaya Mayya), a Rajiv Menon directorial, that had the lyricist working with AR Rahman.