he began writing songs for all the leading music directors such as s v venkataraman g ramanathan k v mahadevan s dakshinamurthy and the duo viswanathanramamoorthy he was among the first to change tamil film lyrics from a sanskritdominated mythologyoriented period to a format that was closer to the tamil people incorporating contemporary ideas while at the same time stressing on the cultural roots especially with relation to traditional crafts and agriculture many of his songs were rooted to the tamil nadu soil bearing a stamp of nativity of course he did his share of mythologybased films sampoorna ramayanam 1958 starring n t rama rao sivaji ganesan padmini and t k bhagavathy and lava kusa which became popular among the masses but he preferred social filmsthe humane qualities of maruthakasi came to the fore on several occasions he gave opportunities to pattukkotai kalyanasundaram early in his career he was one of those who recommended t m sounderarajan for thookku thookki though initially actor sivaji ganesan wanted only c s jayaraman to sing for him after the film tms became a regular fixture for sivaji maruthakasi also played a vital role in the career of vali whose song sirikkinraal inru sirikkinraal for nallavan vaazhvaan was not accepted by the film crew who and invited maruthakasi to write the song instead maruthakasi insisted on retaining valis song which helped his association with c n annadurai and mgr hero like a few other illustrious colleagues in the film industry he tried his hand at film production the film alli petra pillai remake of a successful hindi movie tangewali was lost without a trace when his coproducer k v mahadevan rued the fact that they were debt ridden maruthakasi shrugged and said aanaakka andha madam aagaatti sandhe madam he converted his pain into art and used these lines as pallavi for the film aayiram roobaay which said that they can either reach the skies or descend to the level of a platformmeanwhile kannadasan had risen to dizzying heights and maruthakasi already facing a huge debt burden found his opportunities shrinking he decided to quit and moved back to his village cutting off all ties from 1963 to 1967 in 1967 after mgr who was his close friend recovered from the shooting incident involving m r radha and decided to resume work and sent word for maruthakasi to return and write for his films maruthakasi returned recorded a song but the film was suddenly shelved mgr continued to support him it was maruthakasis rustic songs like kadavul enum mudhalali kandedutha thozhilaali vivasaayi for vivasaayi which added to mgrs profarmer image devar backed maruthakasis second innings with thaerthiruvizha and other films in the later years he wrote lyrics for a few films starring jaishankar rajinikanth and sivakumar he was conferred the title thiraikkavi thilakam his works were nationalised by the government of tamil nadua man deeply moved by the cauvery agriculture and the traditions of the working class in tamil nadu wedded to selfrespect he will