The story of how famous men went from rags to riches has been told time and again, and some of our South Indian celebrities have a similar background. Collection King Dr. Mohan Babu was a drill master and Rajinikanth was a bus conductor before they started putting on make up and winning the hearts of movie lovers. But do you know that Tamil star Ajith, who recently hit the Telugu screens as‘David Billa’, has a similar story?
Before turning to acting, he was a full time scooter mechanic! Born in Secunderabad, Ajith never went on to college after completing his high school education but instead learnt the art of bike repair from a scooter mechanic. He later turned to race car driving before appearing in TV commercials. With that experience and many unsuccessful trials he was able to land supporting roles in only two Telugu films. In 1993, he was chosen for the lead role by Lakshmi Productions for their film ‘Prema Pustakam’. He even changed his name to ‘Srikar’ for the movie!
That would be his only lead role in a Telugu movie, as he went to the Tamil movie industry and settled there as ‘Ajith’.The rest, as they say, is history!