Ramana penned a series of film scripts featuring serious off-beat stories and approached producers with little luck, hoping to land an offer.
He spent several years narrating the script of a proposed film titled Karkaalam to actors and then finally agreed terms with Prakash Raj to play the lead role during 1996, but no financiers eventually backed the project.
[2] Ramana's first release was Thirumalai (2003), an action-masala venture featuring Vijay, which took a large opening at the box office and performed well commercially.
He briefly began work on Parthasarathy, a project starring Vijayakanth in the lead but the film was later stalled.
His next film, Aathi (2006) an action-masala venture featuring Vijay for the second time, took a large opening at the box office but turned out to be a disaster incurring ₹5 crore loss.