Manigopal, popularly known by his pen name, Vanamaali, is an Indian lyricist and poet who works in
Telugu cinema
Telugu cinema, also known as Tollywood, is the segment of Cinema of India, Indian cinema dedicated to the production of Film, motion pictures in the Telugu language, widely spoken in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Based in Film N ...
. He is the recipient of the
Filmfare Award for Best Lyricist – Telugu. He holds a
PhD
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
in Telugu literature from
Madras University
The University of Madras is a public university, public State university (India), state university in Chennai (Madras), Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1857, it is one of the oldest and most prominent universities in India, incorporated by an ...
.
Background
Dr. Manigopal was born in
Chittoor
Chittoor is a city and district headquarters in Chittoor district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is also the mandal and divisional headquarters of Chittoor mandal and Chittoor revenue division respectively. The city has a popul ...
in
Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...
. His mother tongue is Tamil. He is always interested in many arts, particularly singing. He took up writing seriously while he was in his degree final year. He never had any ambitions of taking up any form of art seriously and it was the emphasis of his parents on education right from the childhood that made him a voracious reader and motivated him to go ahead with education. Vanamaali has earned his Ph.D. with High Honours in Telugu literature. He wrote his first composition which was sung by Vijayalaksmi Sarma in a program in Doordarshan. After that he joined as a reporter in Sitara, a
Telugu film weekly & Eenadu daily and worked there for almost 13 years. During this time he developed his interest in
Telugu movies and is one of the leading lyricists and songwriters in
Tollywood. He has worked with musical maestros such as
Harris Jayaraj
J. Harris Jayaraj (born 8 January 1975) is an Indian composer from Tamil Nadu. He composes soundtracks predominantly for Tamil cinema, Tamil films, while also having composed for a few films in Cinema of Andhra Pradesh, Telugu and two films i ...
,
A. R. Rahman
Allah Rakha Rahman (; born A. S. Dileep Kumar; 6 January 1967), also known by the initialism ARR, is an Indian music composer, record producer, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and philanthropist known for his works in Indian cinem ...
and
Ilaiyaraaja
Ilaiyaraaja (born R. Gnanathesikan) is an Indian musician, composer, arranger, conductor, orchestrator, multi-instrumentalist, lyricist and playback singer popular for his works in Indian cinema, predominately in Tamil cinema, Tamil in addition ...
.
Filmography
As lyricist
As dialogue writer
* ''
Aranya'' (2020)
* ''
Clap'' (2022)
* ''
Star
A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...
'' (2024)
Awards
References
Eenadu interview with Lyricist Vanamaali
External links
TeluguOne interview with lyricist VanamaaliVanamaali profile
Vanamaali lyrics for Happy Days
{{Authority control
1974 births
Telugu-language lyricists
Living people
Filmfare Awards South winners
University of Madras alumni
21st-century Indian songwriters
Indian lyricists