Jayasankar, popularly known by his screen nameKaarthik Shankar, is an Indian YouTuber based in Kerala.
Personal life & career
Kaarthik Shankar was born on 11 July, 1990 in Poovattoor, Kollam district, Kerala. He is the only son of Nooranad Jayan, a professional photographer and Kaladevi, the recent debut as his on-screen mother in the web series “Mom & Son”. At present he along with his family is residing at Adoor, Pathanamthitta. He completed his schooling in CBM HSS Nooranad and graduated BA political science from NSS college, Pandalam. It was during his college days he started creating Short Films and developed a huge interest in the field. He directed a short film named “Thudakkam” as part of a College Film Club. He did his higher education in Sound Engineering from Trivandrum Sound Engineering Academy. Soon he got an opportunity to assist the famous Malayalam Film Director, Rajasenan, and became a part of his movies- Radio Jockey and Wound. Over the career, he has directed around twenty short films, twenty comedy vines and web series episodes, which heavily contributed to his popularity and attribution of being the “Prince of Short Films” - Short Filmukalude Rajakumaran, winning two Youtube awards. In the later years, he directed many short films such as- Bittersweet, Nethavu, Oru Valiya Sathyam, Ore Nizhalukal, Be Positive, Be Bold, By Oneself- to name a few. As said in his interview with Behindwoods Ice, the official Malayalam wing of Behindwoods TV, he received many offers for dubbing the short films into different languages, yet, he personally wishes to remake the short films into Tamil by himself rather than mere dubbing. It was during the lockdown days, his home turned out to be a production house with real acting talents. His humorous web series “Mom & Son”, starring Kaarthik Shankar, Kaladevi and M.S. Raja became a huge hit on Youtube. As a result of the flooding requests from the viewers, he had uploaded a few more episodes of the series, which also went viral. The ninth episode of the series was released by Funtastic Films, the Movie Production & Distribution Company headed by Aju Varghese, Dhyan Sreenivasan and Vishak Subramanian. It was the first time in the history of Malayalam Industry, a Movie Production House launched a web series episode.
Recognition
One of the prominent English daily newspapers in South India, Deccan Chronicle, had addressed Kaarthik Shankar as the "Short film super star" as all of his short films really did break the internet. The oldest English daily newspaper in India, The Hindu, gave a vivid reference of the web series “Mom & Son” as one of the popular social media stars who came up with comic shorts during lockdown, and mentioned the episodes to be extremely hilarious with millions of viewership. Mathrubhumi, one of the front-runners among Malayalam newspapers, published an article on World Mother’s Day featuring Kaarthik and his mother Kaladevi, calling this mother-son duo as the most discussed pair in social media during these lockdown days. Asianet news and The Gulf Indians had featured several articles on Kaarthik Shankar about one of his episodes being produced by Aju Varghese and Dhyan Sreenivasan, which was one of the many milestones in this director turned actor's career. Times of India had featured several articles about him, mainly about the appearance of Aju Varghese in the ninth episode of “Mom & Son”, which slightly deals with the topic of nepotism in the industry and another article mentioned his venture as a stay-at-home quarantine shorts from Kerala among others from different parts of the country. Malayalam News edition of Asianet News have published an article upon Kaarthik’s words about Aju Varghese, as he was the first from the Film Industry to phone and appreciate him, thereafter appearing in one of his episodes as well. The English edition of Mathrubhumi News included Kaarthik Shankar among the popular Youtube stars from the Pathanamthitta district of Kerala. A Malayalam article of Mathrubhumi features Bhadran Mattel, the film director, appreciating and acknowledging Kaarthik’s brilliance in referring the movie, Spadikam as “The Timeless Creation'', upon the movie’s re-release after 25 years.
