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Father and son celebration

SINGAPORE — On Saturday night, Pradhana Vizha saw Re Somasundaram, a familiar voice on Tamil Radio in the 1980s, receive the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award for having a hand in shaping the local Tamil television, radio and stage industry in Singapore over the past 50 years. In a double celebration, his son Karthikeyan Somasundaram won Best Actor for his role in television show Annamalai and Best Host for the info-ed Sathuranga Vettai.

SINGAPORE — On Saturday night, Pradhana Vizha saw Re Somasundaram, a familiar voice on Tamil Radio in the 1980s, receive the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award for having a hand in shaping the local Tamil television, radio and stage industry in Singapore over the past 50 years. In a double celebration, his son Karthikeyan Somasundaram won Best Actor for his role in television show Annamalai and Best Host for the info-ed Sathuranga Vettai.

The father-son duo stole the show with their heartfelt tributes to each other and their family for inspiring and supporting their careers. The older Somasundram, 69, was close to tears as he thanked his wife for waiting up for him no matter what time he finished work during the 30 years he has worked at Oli 96.8FM as a jockey and then producer and presenter. He shared with TODAY the best advice he gave his son whom he encouraged in his pursuit of acting when he was young, was “to be disciplined, punctual and speak good Tamil”.

Karthikeyan, 32, who hosted the awards show alongside Eswari Gunasagar, Vishnu M Anandh and Gayathri Segaran, was incredibly moved and honoured to announce his father as the Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. “I think I am blessed to announce my father receiving the award, I don’t think many children get that opportunity. It’s definitely a proud moment for my entire family. I did not expect to get these two awards myself, and it tells me I’m on the right track and pushes me to keep going forward,” shared Karthikeyan, who is currently pursuing his acting degree at Lasalle.

This year’s Pradhana Vizha was held for the first time at the new The Theatre @Mediacorp in front of an audience of more than 1,000 people, making the 15th edition the most-attended one.

Crowd-favourite Jaynesh Isuran, along with Karthikeyan, won two awards last night, including the coveted People’s Choice Awards Most Popular Male Personality. Eswari Gunasagar, a familiar face on Channel 5 for her role on Tanglin, won Most Popular Female Personality.

The other star of the night was production house Mediacorp Eaglevision, which won four awards including the technical categories for popular dramas Ennuyire and Vettai.“Tonight was a really good night for us — four awards was definitely not expected,” commented Anuratha Kanderju, senior executive producer.

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