Ghantasala Ratnakumar has a brush with fame through the same industry that celebrated his father. The son of legendary singer Ghantasala entered the India Book of Records for dubbing eight hours non-stop. He has already entered the Amazing World Records and Tamil Nadu Book for Records. A dubbing artiste for the last 32 years, he has dubbed for 1,076 films in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi and Sanskrit. He has also lent his voice to over 10,000 episodes in Telugu and Tamil serials and more than 50 documentaries.
So what prompted him to attempt this? “I wanted to give something back to the industry that has supported me all along,” he says. The artiste is now eyeing the Guinness Book of Records, looking to dub for 12 hours non-stop.
How come, as a singer's son, he did not choose singing? “I tried, but I did not get a break. But, when I dubbed for the Telugu version of the Tamil film ‘Kanchi Kamakshi' and it ran for nearly 100 days, I got more offers. And, dubbing became my career.” However, he does sing light music on stage, and has anchored various programmes.
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He is the recipient of the Nandi Award for the best male dubbing artiste, presented by the government of Andhra Pradesh. He was conferred the title ‘Kalaiselvam' by the South Indian Artists Association and the title ‘Kuralselvam' by the South Indian Cine, TV Artists and Dubbing Artists Union. He received the ‘Ugadi Puraskar' from the Madras Telugu Association.