Early Life
Madhavan was born on 1 June 1970 in Jamshedpur, India, to a Hindu Tamil Brahmin family. His father Ranganathan was a management executive with Tata Steel whilst his mother, Saroja was a manager with the Bank of India. His sister, Devika, is a software engineer settled in the United Kingdom. He had a Tamil-speaking upbringing in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand erstwhile Bihar. He is alumni of D.B.M.S. English School and was senior to Bollywood director Imtiaz Ali and Miss India,2004 turned actress Tanushree Dutta.
In 1988, Madhavan was chosen to represent India as its cultural ambassador from Rajaram College, Kolhapur to Canada after his graduation in electronics. At 22, he was awarded the Maharashtra NCC Best Cadet, allowing him to make a trip with seven others as NCC Cadets to England. Because of this honour, he received training with the Royal Army, the Navy and the Air Force, which he previously planned to join. However he was rejected from the opportunity, as he missed the age cut-off by six months. After he lost out on the place, he began taking courses in public speaking which eventually helped him venture into the film industry. He won the Indian Championship for Public Speaking and was subsequently selected to represent India at the Young Businessmen Conference in Tokyo, Japan in 1992.
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