S Ramachandran

Ramachandran Srinivasan is a veteran journalist, who has now turned a filmmaker.
Currently Ramachandran is producing a couple of films and directing his own movie as well.
Early Days
A shy child, Ramachandran popularly known as Rama, started working as a child when he used to give tuitions for pocket money. His father VS Srinivasan was working with the cash department of the popular newspaper Indian Express. Ramachandran also started playing chess, basketball and handball early in his school days at SIWS HIgh School and excelled in the sports well enough to represent his organisations, school and colelge in the said sports.
Mimicry and Compering
Ramachandran discovered his ability to talk after losing his fear of stammering, and started doing shows as a compere and a mimic. He used to mimic around 35 actors apart from imitating every possible sound. One even felt that he could have made his career as a mimic had he continued for long.
Chartered Accountancy days
After his graduation in Commerce from SIWS NR Swamy College of Commerce and Economics Ramachandran who started off as a journalist after bidding adieu to a career as a Chartered Accountant was working with Modi, Vijay and Vedula Associates. He was handling tax matters apart from looking after the audit work of several top companies.
Liaison officer
Prior to that he was serving as a Liaison Officer with Karnataka Pressure Vessels buying steel from oil companies and getting gas cylinders made and selling them back to the companies as well.
Journalism
At that juncture Ramachandran was deep entrenched into journalism having written for various newspapers like Mid-day, The Independent, MOS, Ananda Bazaar Patrika, Indian Express, Daily among others.
Full time Journalistic job
In 1994 Ramachandran joined Afternoon Despatch and Courier as a reporter. He had an offer on the same day from Stardust after the owner Nari Hira had offered him a job impressed by his skills, but he preferred to take up the offer ina newspaper as it was a dream for him to work with seasoned journalist Behram Contractor popularly known as a Busybee. It was here that Behram Contractor gave Ramachandran the responsibility of starting the Bollywood pages in the newspaper for the first time in nine years and Ramachandran did it with aplomb. He also wrote a column in the business pages for the buiness editor Mehraboon Irani.
Ramachandran was also reporting on city issues in the newspaper including the BMC and crime. He covered some big stories here including the raging fire on DN Road which engulfed some old structures on the road.
Bombay Tribune
In 1995, Ramachandran left Afternoon to become a correspondent with the Bombay Tribune which was started by Saisuresh Sivaswamy. Saisuresh was the man responsible for advising Ramachandran to join Afternoon as well when he got the simultaneous offer from Stardust.
Here Ramachandran learnt things which no one could have ever been able to teach him. Apart from reporting on crime, politics, sports and entertainment apart from city issues, he ended up subbing copies and making pages after the designer Nishad packed off to Dubai giving just three days notice.
Ramachandran thus graduated to a sub editor as well doubling up with duties of a page designer.
Indian Express
By the end of 1995, Bombay Tribune had to be shut down as it was a marketing failure. The newspaper had great content and stories published there were copied by other newspapers as well. But then Ramachandran was hired by the Resident Editor of Indian Express Ravi Srinivasan as a Sub Editor and Reporter. Indian Express was to start a supplement called Express Newsline and Ramachandran's expertise in pagination would have also come in handy.
Ramachandran reproted on multiple issues including a breaking story on how BJP workers who had come for a national convention had visited the red ligth area of Kamathipura rather than being at the conference. The story found mention with V Gangadhar's column in the Sunday magazine as well. The story was also written about by Sujata Anandan years later in the Hindustan Times on how a non political journalist had broken the story.
Mid-day
After Indian Express, Ramachandran joined Sunday Midday in 1997. He joined as a sub editor and feature writetr and slowly graduated to be a chief sub editor with the newspaper. And at one time when the entire senior members of the paper were out, he single handedly managed the paper with the aid of another sub editor to make pages.
One of the most remarkable stories that Ramachandran did here and which found a mention in The Statesman newspaper Calcutta as well as the American Traveller was a story on begging in Mumbai. Ramachandran had dressed as a beggar with a brand new mobile phone and roamed the streets of Mumbai, chased by policemen, children and even touts and gangsters belonging to a gang which indulged in the begging racket in Mumbai.
It was during this time that he also brought out a special issue on 50 Years of Indian Independence.
Later Ramachandran moved on to The List section of the newspaper writing film reviews and also breaking big news stories on entertainment. Apart from discovering
Sanskriti Media and Entertainment
Ramachandran then formed Sanskriti Media and Entertainment along with his wife Sonal Ramachandran named after his cute little daughter Sanskriti Ramachandran.
This company is into providing content to various newspapers, magazines, tv channels, mobile companies and websites. Sanskriti Media and Entertainment is also having talks to produce TV shows for General Entertainment Channels as well.
Sanskriti Media and Entertainment is also foraying into the world of cinema very soon.

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