Therukoothus (Street folklore and dance) that regularly happened at the Dharmaraja Temple, near Gnani’s house at Chengappattu, impacted him at a young age. Gnani had also recorded that his maternal uncle who was a lorry driver used to wear ‘Puli Vesham’ (Tiger Dance) for Dasara, which influenced him and formed foundation for his tryst with theatre and plays later. Incidentally in his first drama at St. Joseph's school at Chengalpattu, Gnani donned the role of a journalist.

From 1976 to 1977 he was a member of the ‘Koothu-p-pattarai’. In 1977, He participated in the drama training camp conducted by Prof. Ramanujam and Malayalam Play writer G. Sankaranpillai at Gandhigram, Dindigul.

In 1978, he started a theatre troupe ‘Pareeksha’ with his friends. Pareeksha is one of the pioneering and influential theatre attempts in the seventies among the non-professional theatre groups. Pareeksha played their first drama ‘Porvai Poathiya Udalgal’ on the 19th of November 1978 with the goal of removing myths about life and drama among the middle class.

Gnani was also the founding member of ‘Street Drama Movement’ in 1978. The story of first play of the movement by name ‘Naveena Kuselan’ was written by Gnani. In 1980, he participated in training camp of the Bengali theatre director Badal Sircar organized by the movement.

In 1995-96, he conducted a workshop on ‘Techniques for Street drama’ for about 400 college students under the National Welfare Programme of Manonmaniam Sundaranar University.

Between 1999 and 2001, he taught dramatics for Women's Christian College students and created a play at the end of the workshop, the Management was against the title of the play “Sandaikarigal” … But Gnani instead of changing the name mentioned it as an “unnamed drama” and the play was performed by students who participated in the workshop.

In 1981, he tried to bring a magazine for theatre in the name of ‘Katiyankaran’. But the magazine could not come due to financial constraints. In 1994, the magazine "Arangam" which he brought for the theatre stopped with the first issue.

His another most important contribution for theatre was filing a case against the ‘Tamil Nadu Theatre Censorship Act’ in Chennai High Court and winning it. In 1954, the then Congress state government brought this British Indian Drama Censorship Act to curb MR Radha's rationalastic rhetoric. As per that rule, anyone who wants to enact a drama should apply and get permission from the district collectorate in other districts and from the city police commissioner in Chennai by submitting a copy of the scripts before the play. A case was filed by Gnani in Chennai High Court in 2012 regarding this issue. Judge Chandru, who inquired the case, concluded that these rules were contradictory to the Indian constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression and ended a 60 year old theater censorship.

Even few days before his death on January 5, 2018, Gnani performed a play with his Pareeksha troupe in Madurai.