List of people associated with Mayiladuthurai district

The following people were born or based their life in the Mayiladuthurai district in Tamil Nadu, India.

This article contains dynamic lists that may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by editing the page to add missing items, with references to reliable sources.

Academics

• M.S. Udhayamoorthy – A Tamil writer and social activist.^[1]
• S.R. Renganathan – An Indian librarian and mathematician. He is considered to be the father of library science, documentation, and information science in India.^[2]
• Sa. Kandasamy – A novelist and documentary film-maker.^[3][4]
• T. R. Venkatarama Sastri – An Indian lawyer and politician who served as the Advocate-General for Madras Presidency^[5][6]
• Raghavan Seetharaman – former CEO of Doha Bank, Qatar.^[7]

Film artists and musicians

• M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar – An Indian actor and Carnatic singer. Critics and film historians acknowledge Bhagavathar as the "First superstar of Tamil cinema.^[8]
• Padma Shri Sirkazhi Govindarajan – A Carnatic vocalist and a playback singer of Indian cinema, predominantly in Tamil cinema.^[9][10]
• Nadaswaram Vidwan T.N. Rajarathinam – An Indian Carnatic musician, nadaswaram maestro, vocalist and film actor. He was popularly known as "Nadaswara Chakravarthi" (literally, the Emperor of Nadaswaram).^[11][12][13]
• G. N. Balasubramaniam – An Indian Carnatic singer and also a Tamil film actor.^[14]
• S. Kalyanaraman – A vocalist in the Carnatic tradition.^[15]
• T. Rajendar – An Indian actor, film director, film producer, musician, cinematographer, film distributor and politician.^[16]
• P. Krishnamoorthy – An Indian film art director, production designer and costume designer.^[17]
• S. R. D. Vaidyanathan – An Indian musician who played the Nadaswaram.^[18]
• R. D. Rajasekhar – an Indian cinematographer who predominantly works in films of Indian languages such as Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, and Hindi.^[19]

Religious and spiritual poets

• Sambandar - a Shaiva poet-saint of Tamil Nadu who lived in the 7th century CE. He is revered as one of the Nalvar ("group of four" in Tamil), a set of four prominent Tamil saints alongside Appar, Sambandarm and Manikkavacakar.^[20]
• Kambar – A poet and the author of Ramayana in Tamil Language known as Kambaramayanam.^[21][22]
• Mayuram Vedhanaygam Pillai – An Indian civil servant, Tamil poet, novelist and social worker who is remembered for the authorship of Prathapa Mudaliar Charithram (1879), recognized as the "first modern Tamil novel"^[23][24]
• Kalki Krishnamoorthy – An Indian writer, journalist, poet, critic and Indian independence activist. Historical novels such as Ponniyin Selvan, Sivagamiyin Sabatham written by Kalki apart from this his writings include over 120 short stories, 10 novellas, 5 novels, 3 historical romances, editorial and political writings and hundreds of film and music reviews.^{[25][26][27][28]}

Sports

• Viswanathan Anand – An Indian chess grandmaster. Anand is a five-time World Chess Champion, a two-time World Rapid Chess Champion, a two-time Chess World Cup Champion, a World Blitz Chess Cup Champion and six-time Chess Oscar Winner. He became the first grandmaster from India in 1988, and he has the eighth-highest peak FIDE rating of all time. He has been awarded with Padma Vibhushan – Second highest civilian award awarded by Government of India in 2008.^[29][30][31]

Political leaders

• Thillaiyadi Valliammai – A South African Tamil girl who worked with Mahatma Gandhi in her early years when she developed her nonviolent methods in South Africa fighting its apartheid regime.^[32][33]
• R. K. Bharathi Mohan – An Indian politician and former Member of Parliament elected from the from Mayiladuturai constituency.^[34]
• P. Govindasamy Pillai – A revered successful South Indian businessman and philanthropist in Singapore.^[35][36]
• P. V. Rajendran – An Indian politician and former Member of the Legislative Assembly of Tamil Nadu.^[37]
• Kudanthai N. Ramalingam – An Indian politician and former Member of Parliament elected from Tamil Nadu.^[38]
• S. Ramanathan – An Indian politician who served as the minister of Madras Presidency in the Congress-led government of 1937.^[39]
• K. R. Sambandam – An Indian politician and former Member of Parliament elected from the from Nagapattinam.^[40]

See also

• List of people from Tamil Nadu

References

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2. Islam, Md Nurul (2015-06-10). "S. R. Ranganathan:Library and Documentation Scientist". Current Science. 108 (11): 2110–2111. doi:10.18520/cs/v108/i11/2110-2111 (inactive 18 August 2025). ISSN 0011-3891.
3. Dutt, Kartik Chandra (1999). Who's who of Indian Writers, 1999: A-M. Sahitya Akademi. ISBN 978-81-260-0873-5.
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17. Staff, T. N. M. (2020-12-14). "National Award winning art director P Krishnamoorthy passes away at 77". The News Minute. Retrieved 2025-08-17.
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25. "Kalki Krishnamurthy: His Life and Times — more than just a biography". Archived from the original on 2022-04-29. Retrieved 2025-08-17.
26. admin (2020-01-22). "Kalki - Profile and Life career of Indian writer - Tamilnadu". Aptinfo.in. Retrieved 2025-08-17.
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29. "'I start off playing for India. And that's it.Beyond that, the game just takes over'". www.indianexpress.com. Archived from the original on 2011-05-14. Retrieved 2025-08-17.
30. "The chess games of Viswanathan Anand". www.chessgames.com. Archived from the original on 2019-12-27. Retrieved 2025-08-17.
31. mha.nic.in https://web.archive.org/web/20151015193758/http://mha.nic.in/sites/upload_files/mha/files/LST-PDAWD-2013.pdf. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-10-15. Retrieved 2025-08-17. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
32. Ramaswamy, Vijaya (2017-08-25). Historical Dictionary of the Tamils. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. ISBN 978-1-5381-0686-0.
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40. "Loksabha members : Sambandam , Shri K.R. - Data is Info: Data is more useful if it is made available in a better format". Data is Info. Retrieved 2025-08-17.