Women who ‘dared’
TV anchor Sajna Vinish on her book Gayathri —Women Stalwarts in Carnatic Music
By : cris
Update: 2015-10-09 23:58 GMT
In the many years she has worked as a television anchor, interviewing celebrities for various shows, Sajna Vinish never thought of clicking photos with the stars she met. She has always been a poor marketer of her own self, she says. So no one, not even her close friends, knew she could sing. Even Soorya Krishnamoorthy didn’t know. And she has been working with him for 15 years, becoming one of the three main comperes every year at the Soorya Fest. This Soorya Fest, however, she has appeared front stage in another role, while her long time friends Aiswarya and Resmi compered it. Sajna had her first book released by art critic P Ravikumar, minutes before Manju Warrier came on stage for her Kuchipudi performance.
Gayathri – Women Stalwarts in Carnatic Music is a book she has been working on for two years. But the idea was born in college, when Sajna was doing her PG in Music. “We had to submit a thesis and I chose this topic but that was a 60-page report. Even then my guide Bindu Teacher said I should develop it into a book later.” But life’s responsibilities kept pushing it to later, until later became now. “This year it is MS Subbulakshmi’s 100th birth anniversary and I thought it would be the right time.” In her book, she speaks not of all women musicians, but a select few, the first few who ‘dared’ to perform in public at a time it was considered a taboo.
“Only Devadasis would perform in public, they were the custodians of art.” The first Veena exponent to perform thus was Veena Dhanammal, on whom Sajna has written as an introduction to the life of those times. “Now, as soon as you hear Devadasi, you connect it to prostitution. But it was not so. Society had changed things for them later, but many of them continued with their art.” She then goes on to write about Brinda and Muktha, the granddaughters of Dhanamal who performed as a duo. After that she writes of three musicians, who came in changing times – MS Subbulakshmi, ML Vasanthakumari and DK Pattammal.
A lot of support for her book came from Soorya Krishnamoorthy. He introduced her to Ravikumar who reviewed her work and encouraged her to proceed. It was also Krishnamoorthy who allowed her a venue, when she came with an idea of a singing marathon. “It was in fact the idea of my friend Firoz – RJ Kidilam Firoz – who is a winner of several records himself. He asked why not do a marathon concert where only my effort comes. I said no way.” But then she decided to try it step by step on the advice of her guru Dr Omanakutty. She finished the first of these steps, completing a 12-hour concert at ‘Soorya Avenue’ on top of Krishnamoorthy’s house. The next step will be a 24-hour concert, sometime in November. Sajna is also a trained classical dancer, but that has taken a backseat now with all her focus on music.