In 1996, Deva composed tunes for 36 movies. The 1990s belonged as much to Deva as it did to A. He was widely acclaimed for his scores for the Rajinikanth starrer Annamalai (1992) and Baashha (1995).
He is also famous for his compositions for religious films. So far, he has composed music for more than 400 films, which include Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam films. Viswanathan called him “thenisai thendral”, or the breeze of sweet music. After the release of Vaikaasi Poranthaachu, his name became known throughout the Tamil community. He was then called to work on the movie Vaigasi Poranthachu. His first film, Manasukketha Maharasa, was released in 1989. In those days, Deva's brothers were working in the musical troupes of Illayaraja and other music directors as instrumentalists. His nephew Jai is an actor.īefore coming to cinema, Deva worked for some time in the television field. His son Srikanth Deva is also a music director, as are his brothers, who have formed the duo Sabesh–Murali. He started learning classical music under Dhanraj and has completed a course in Western music at Trinity College of Music in London.
Teaming up with Chandra Bose, he staged many musical programmes. Even in his childhood, Deva was attracted to the world of music.
