Thiruthuraipoondi Radhakrishnan Sivasankaran (T. R. Pappa) (3 July 1922 – 15 October 2004) was an Indian music director of Tamil, Telugu and Sinhalese films. He was born in 1923 at Thiruthuraipoondi, Madras Presidency, British India.

Personal life

Papa's real name is Sivasankaran, who is from a lineage of musical family. He started training on the violin from early childhood. His father had inability to pay tution fees his education was stopped in middle. He was trained by Siva Vadivelu Pillai who joined in National movie tone cinema company, as fiddle player to some movies Seemanthini 1936 Parvathi Kalyanam 1936 and this life of carrying instruments ended in 1938.

After he joined as a helper to S.G. Kasi Iyer, elder brother of great Kittappa. In 1941 most of the citizens was flying to other towns due to fear of Japanese Bombing Jupiter Pictures was shifted to Coimbatore, M.S.Viswanathan went with S.V.Venkatraman who is famous music director on those days. Kalki`s daughter Ananthi, Sadasivam`s daughter Radha were dancers, jointly made dance Programmes, M.S.Viswanathan as Playback Singer along with Papa Violin.