Balaji Patturaj (born 20 June 1985), popularly known as RJ Balaji, is an Indian radio jockey, actor, television presenter, comedian and film director in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He is best known as the host of the 92.7 Big FM shows The Night Show with RJ Balaji, Take it Easy and it's now defunct segment Cross Talk, where he made prank calls to unsuspecting victims.
Originally a radio jockey, Balaji is also active in other fields; he is known for his association with the television shows Ungalil Yaar Adutha Prabhu Dheva and Why This Kolaveri, and for his performance in the films Theeya Velai Seiyyanum Kumaru (2013), Vadacurry (2014) Naanum Rowdy Dhaan (2015), Pugazh (2016) and LKG (2019) (as an actor), Mookuthi Amman (2020) and Veetla Vishesham (2022) (as an actor and a co-director). He has also been a presenter at many inter-school cultural events in Chennai, a cricket commentator, and has contributed to many social causes, such as providing relief support to the victims of the 2015 South India floods along with other actors.
Early life
Balaji was born on 20 June, and was raised in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He has four siblings, one younger brother and three younger sisters. He said that his father abandoned his family at an unspecified point. Balaji said in his 2022 Spotify Podcast Naallanaa Murukku that he changed 35 to 36 houses and 11 schools while growing up in Chennai because his "mother just cannot stay in one place.” She would move from Perambur to Thiruvanmiyur to Mylapore... no place close to each other." When he was in college, Balaji realised that his strength was in interaction and that the attention and acclaim he received in his college cultural gave him confidence and he realised that he had to be in the media.
After completing his BSc computer science from the Kumararani Meena Muthiah College of Arts in 2006, Balaji joined the Amrita School of Communication in Coimbatore for a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism, because he wanted to become like his cousin who worked at NDTV, but when he was asked to write a report on his hostel's aLizzie Antony is an Indian actress working in the Tamil film industry, mostly as a supporting actress. She is best known for her roles in Thanga Meenkal (2013) and Taramani (2017). Apart from films, Antony has performed in advertisements, short films and web series.
Lizzie Antony became the first South Indian actress to win ‘The Phenomenal She’ award in 2022, organized by The Indian National Bar Association (INBA) for 100 woman achievers every year.
Career
Thanga Meenkal, directed by acclaimed film maker Ram, helped her to get noticed as her character Stella miss, an English teacher in a private school, who is a stickler for discipline was appreciated by the critics as well as the audience.
Antony is a post graduate of commerce from Madras University and a trained classical dancer. Her natural performance in the sleeper hit Taramani was widely appreciated and later she played the pair of Mammootty in the commercial and critically successful film Peranbu and her mother act in Ispade Rajavum Idhaya Raniyum, has made her a recognizable actress of Tamil films. She played Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka in the OTT release Methagu.canteen, the 56-word report contained 47 grammatical errors, and he soon realised that English journalism was not what he was interested in. At that time he saw a newspaper advertisement of a radio station (Radio Mirchi Coimbatore) that auditioned for radio jockeys and he applied for it, though he "never knew what an RJ was back then". He said that he almost did not get selected then when he sang a gaana but was finally selected in November 2006. He has not completed his journalism course since.
