Ranjani Sukumaran
Sree Lakshmipriya
It is such a special feeling to introduce these two singers here from Tamil Nadu. Ranjani and Lakshmi Priya on a very important and special feature where we are honoring the South India’s Carnatic legend Smt. MS Subbulakshmi (MSS) amma. Tamil Nadu is a state that produced and contributed enormously to the nurture of South India Carnatic music. A whole generation of fellow-men and women for whom the music is a way of life and the straight way to reach god. Soon in an anecdote you will see the struggles and victory of legendary MSS amma at a time in history when women singers struggled to lead a public life. Our hope is readers realize the humble beginnings of these two singers and encourage them by visiting their Smule page and follow them and encourage them.
Ranjani S – A Melodious Voice Born to Sing
It was serendipity that led us to find this great singer on Smule. Ranjani’s profile display an awesome singing talent. When approached she was very kind to accept the invitation with much grace. She identify herself as a classical based singer. Her father Sivaramakrishnan is her guru (teacher). Her dad himself is a stage performer of devotional concerts, and a big fan of T.M. Soundararajan. For novice TMS is one of Tamil movie industry’s lead male singer who sang many songs for Kolliwood super stars like MGR, Shivaji Ganeshan etc. The influences of some singers of certain era form the music taste of some people. Like wise Ranjani at a very early age itself started singing, inspired by her fathers singing cinema music at home . Then later she was properly trained in Carnatic music under his teachings.
Ranjani although like very classically inclined songs she is not shy from giving a try at Reality shows; she realize the changes in the music world. She participated in many TV shows like Ragamalika on Jaya TV and Airtel super singer on Vijay TV etc. Her favorite time pass is to do singing performances in concerts at her local temple. She work for a private firm based in Chennai. She like the Smule app very much for its features of challenges in self producing a song by singing a video song at a stretch. The app helped her practice a lot and above all hearing the recorded versions makes her gain a lot of confidence lately. She is also very active locally in judging music competitions.
She then moved on to describe what inspires her as a musician. She says ” I would love to compose devotional songs and produce them myself.” She is already on her way to produce songs with her few friends and posted them on YouTube. Here is her own production of an album called Meimarandhu. Wowed by this! She already have made some original compositions and she is highly collaborative with her like-minded two friends Swetha and Vinoth. About the album production she says ” I approached my friends who sing well Swetha and Vinoth; they agreed to join her in this music production and they all shared the expenses to make the album”. Here is a song from her album.
Ranjani is an awesome singer and we now know her never-ending spirit while working with her on this feature. A very hard-working and focused singer with a clear vision on what she want to do with her singing. We see a lot of changes in the social set up where modern-day singers go through. Yet the struggles and the steps that one take to success is very similar. We are very sure Ranjani will be a very successful musician like her wishes to make devotional music.
Without delay let us get to know her singing profile. Let us do this song she sang with a phenomenal voice in Tamil smule Venkat. Thanks Venkant for coming on our blog and write a comment on our very first singer to feature here VidhuVivek. Here is a small gift to include your wonderful singing. Janaki and SPB song. There is nothing can go wrong if Ranjani try a S. Janaki song, Awesome melodious voice.
Another dedication to a big supporter of our blog Rama Swaminath. She is one of the first people who came on the blog to write a few lines showed a lot of support. More than a thanks her efforts to nurture good singers on Smule sing by leading a role to have people learn different ragas and raga based songs in films was commendable. She used to run invites for people to join in free style. During some chat she mentioned her busy schedule as a doctor profession keeps her very busy these days. Still madam, we thank you for the kind gesture to write few words on our humble blog and also gave moral support to the blog. Here she sings with Ranjani on her invite Hi Rama Ye Kya Huva This is out of this world. The song itself is full of possibilities to innovate and make it more beautiful than the original. Both singers sang this awesome.
Srividhya Vivek, our very first featured singer singing an MSS movie classic song from movie Meera Kaatrinile Varum Geetham with Ranjani. So fitting this song and it is a song made in 1947 and we think OMG, these two singers have made MS magic a new touch here. Kudos to Vidhya to sing such songs and send invites. In this context we have to specially mention VidhuVivek an amazing talent we already have featured her in our first blog. Watch this song she sang.
Here joining her invite Ranjani show enormous potential in her voice and singing ability and the taste for excellent music. Excellent join and singing by both. This can be a called as a Gem of class on Smule Sing.
Here Ranjani joins another beautiful young singer KrishanUnni a most beautiful Kahe Ched form Devdas.
Illayaraja magic. A beautiful singing with SreeKrishnan. Vellai Pura ondru. SreeKrishnan is lined up in an upcoming feature here, not a trained singer and with a unique voice. You may find a number of joins with him on Ranjani’s profile. Ranjanis’ voice and its quality is awesome. Again S. Jananki & K.J. Song.
Ranjani joins yet anotehr young voice very unique promising singer profile name Sreeku on a beautiful melody Swasame Swasame
Ranjani here proved that she can sing any melody despite any language barrier without any accents and she joins Pradip Soman on Gaatha Rahe, an old Hindi classic song originally sung by Kishoreda and Lataji. Ranjani’s voice quality is amazing. No words to describe Pradip Soman Sir. Beautiful, watch this, excellent musical expressions.
Lastly we wanted to add this to show a promising male singer Balakrishnan, Aagaya Vennilave. Nice support by both and great singing.
We hope you all enjoyed knowing up and close this beautiful Singer Ranjani through her music. We enjoyed writing about a singer with a clear path in her mind in front. We are happy we got a chance to cover a lot of our friends here as well. Thanks to all singers. Most above to Ranjani, you are an awesome singer. Thanks for agreeing to be on our feature and share your music here. We are looking forward to help you in the future by featuring any of your new albums or any other songs here whenever we get an opportunity. Keep the good singing and all the best. Keep reading our second singer Lakshmipriya in the next section.
SreeLakshmi Priya – A singer of sweetest melodies
Sree Laksmiprya is here solely because of a great kind music director Shabir Tabre Alam came on Smule Sing and posted a contest to select singers for his upcoming movie project Sagaa. See the details of the contest and its winners here. #SingForShabir.
For the people who do not know about what this all about. Shabir is a music composer, director who posted few months back a contest on Smule for finding a singer for his upcoming projects. At the end of it he announced two winners and Lakshmipriya and Riya Debnath won the chance to sing for Shabir
It was such a great gesture for many singers from a great award-winning music director like him coming and do a contest on a very popular app. We posted the contest on our blog and informed Shabir about this he wrote immediately back “That’s awesome and will check out “. Also when the winners announced we were awed; knowing that there were thousands of entries for the contest and it must have been a Himalyan task to go through them. But you know what, the great news is, he indeed came up with the best of best as you are going to witness here. Shabir agreed for an interview with us but we could not make it happen yet, due to Shabir’s busy schedule. Will do a feature for him whenever he want. Nevertheless, we were able to catch up with the two new celebrities he created Sree Lakshmipriya and Riya Debnath. Riya is in a previously announced feature next week dedicated to Rabidra Sangeeth.
When approached for this write up Lakshmipriya was really warm and sweet telling us she would be delighted to share her experiences with all of us. Asked about her Carnatic training ” Learnt from 4th grade till about 12th grade regularly”. She hail from a very small place called Neyveli. Asked weather “She ever thought she have a chance to win this?” “Not even a clue, but like in everything I gave it a sincere try”. Definitely, it is one of the most beautiful entries.
Asked a tricky question to her , “OK Shabir gave you this opportunity, now with this do you think you can make it big?” The answer was a very confident ” Yes , I think I can make it big” She continued saying ” All songs are very inspirational for me” ” Then she quickly added “There will be many hurdles on the way to the success, and one have to make those hurdles into steps. Perseverance, will lead to sure success” All profoundly well thought amazing pieces of thoughts by a girl from a small humble background; a great gesture by a great music director here, sure selected a right candidate for his project. Lakshmi is a hard worker and a very sweet soul. Asked about her favorite music genre, she said “Raaja sir songs than max irukum, you can download them from my profile” A singer of Raaja melodies and she continues to say ” Raaja sir’s music romba soulful “
A great singer indeed as you all going to witness more here. Let us start with her winning entry of Yayum song here
Here is her winning entry – a great effort of a great music director to come out to select a not at all famous singer but sing her heart out there and gave it her best try. Entire smule community very happy about Shabir and will be huge supporter of his upcoming projects. Recently “Thinkmusic” came with the “Pondattee contest” that is also an awesome one. Great job Shabir. Very smart move indeed. Enjoy Shabir’s Yayum song with Lakshmi.
Malargale malargale an AR Rahman song (who just yesterday won another national award for his Maniratnam movie). We hope Lakshmipriya get all that opportunity to sing for all great music directors like him. The co-singer Jey Raghavan is a very nice singer on Tamil smule with an excellent singing voice.
A very unusual song selection of a beautiful melody originally sung by an awesome Carnatic trained playback singer Unnikrishnan. Adi Anarkali Adiye Anarkali. A very fresh feel to a male-female song. Lakshmipriya gave the song a lot of beautiful expressions; Listen to her singing this song from the movie Varushamellam Vasantha.
Kanna Kaatthu Podhum from Rekka movie song a beautiful solo performance. Original song by Shreya Ghoshal, exceptionally beautiful high notes, extremely challenging song. Note the control of her high notes, effort-full, yet no strain in the voice; rather it added some more expression and ‘feel’ into the song. We think these performances on her profile make this singer a class apart.
Nan Pogiren A Chitra & SPB beauty, here sung by Lakshmipriya and Sreekrishnan.
Lakshmipriya during our interaction came out to be the most unassuming person who definitely deserve everything going on in her life. Shabir by doing this great contest did a life changing event for all those on Smule who work hard on their singing and it gave a hope and purpose to all those hidden talents. Lakshmipriya wanted all Illayaraja songs in this feature, due to some copyright issues we were not able to display some of her best performances. Please visit her smule sing profile here. and do follow her and encourage this singer. All the best and a big thanks for Shabir to speak with us.
MS Subbulakshmi- a women genius and her personal struggles
We thought there is no other legend suitable to go in this feature when two phenomenal singers from Tamil Nadu is on our feature.
Madurai Shanmukhavadivu Subbulakshmi or popularly known among her devotees as MS Amma ( MS the mother). Born to a devdasi mother MS was taught the art of singing at very young age itself. Later she eloped from a marriage arranged by her mother and fell in love with a married man Kalki Sadasivam a leading political figure a freedom fighter. They both waited till the man’s wife passed away to continue a life together. After marriage she assumed the role of a traditional house wife, where her husband decided what she did with her career. Even he spoke for her in public. But biographers who really tried to understand the woman behind this public persona, believe that behind all the traditional India woman one can see her rebellious nature, who silently led a war against traditions. She eloped from an arranged marriage, fell in love with a married man, ultimately waited long to marry him and madly trusted him for the rest of her life, and treated him as her soul mate and gave him every respect. The character she portrayed in “Meera” was a true representation of a rebel woman and people at that time believed that she is the saint singer in actual life. A woman who never had to crave for any fame and who almost lived under the public eye from her early age itself it must have been hard not to obey all the norms. We will try to go through this great legendary singers life and music very briefly
Her Music:
She learned all her basics of Carnatic music from her mother and her Hindustani from Pandit Narayan Rao Vyas. She recorded her first album at the age of 10, never had to look back. The sweetest voice and maturity in her singing wowed the pandits of music at that time.
MSS name is synonymous with Carnatic music. Her music is very bakhti oriented (devotional) and she had the right sense of singing all various techniques of the sangathies, and in every performance everything is well planned with brigas and aakarams; start from a very broad base that culminate in an upper octave. For her, swaras are not just distinct sounds that can form millions of permutation combinations; but they merge into each other which expresses the raaga bhavam that reaches the listeners and carry them to a different world. This was possible only by a maestro like her. It is just the sheer genius that we all witnessed when she was alive and now all her recordings convey to us.
Here we share one of the most iconic prayers sung by MSS amma. Just by growing up in India every one know this Venkateshwara Suprabatham in her voice on the microphones from local temples for sure. That voice and this prayer in the morning put one to peace and right mood to start a great day. Give a listen.
Her Movies and her portrayal of Meerabhai:
She acted in few Tamil movies. We just want to restrict our discussions to one movie that we think really is a classic movie made in India cinema. It is “Meera. The movie was made in 1945 directed by an American film director Ellis R. Dungan. MSS portrayed the character of Meera who believed to have lived in 1400s to 1500s period of time and an ardent devotee to Lord Krishna whom she assumed as her husband; Merra bhai is a Hindu mystic poet born to a royal Rajput family. She is well-known as the Bhakti movement of worship of Krishna, She is known as fearless and have disregard to many societal conventional familial ties and her devotion to Krishna is portrayed as the ultimate Krishna Bhakta. A devotee believe her Lord as her husband it was never heard of. She was married according to historians to a king Bhoj Raj unwillingly but the king died in a war and soon her father in law also died in another war related incident. Soon after a new King named Vikram Singh became king of Mewar.Stories says that new king tried his best to attain her love, failed miserably to gain a place in a Krishna devotee Meera’s heart and thus King tried to kill her by poisoning her. The legend says Akbar and Tansen came in disguise to listen to her singing because people talked about her singing all over India. The movie and stories say that Akbar left gold coins embedded with King’s emblem for her impressed by her singing. Although these are all colorful stories portrayed in the movie there is no historic evidence attached to all these incidents. Although Tansen lived roughly around the same era of 1400 to 1500s according to the references.
Meera’s poetry are lyrical padas (metered verses)
Koi Kahe Tene Kaheva Dayiye _let the worldly people Criticize our devotion
The interest of westerners in the Bhakti marga was still evident in US where Hare krishna movement is still very strong. Go here at their official site at http://www.iskcon.org/.
Meera’s love is almost synonym to the love of Krishna’s worldly love Radha. Earlier in a feature we talked about yet another branch of music from the state of Kerala called Sopanasangeetham. Sure read our beautiful feature on this unique style where Radha and Krishna’ s love affair is the theme of this music. Meera call Krishna the dark one here is a translation of some verses
My Dark One has gone to an alien land.
He has left me behind, he’s never returned, he’s never sent me a single word.
So I’ve stripped off my ornaments, jewels and adornments, cut my hair from my head.
And put on holy garments, all on his account, seeking him in all four directions.
Mira: unless she meets the Dark One, her Lord, she doesn’t even want to live.
Also people may be interested to read about a History channel program called Ancient Aliens here . Krishna is a subject we love to explore in addition to Shiva in our features in the coming episodes. These two Gods both are closely aligned to the music and dance.
MSS amma truly was living a life of Meera and she seems related a lot to this character and to this day a movie made in 1947 stands as a musical experiment done by an American film director along with this musical legend. Here we add one famous song by MSS in the movie. Enjoy.
Her Legacy:
Certain singers leave a legacy behind that is infectious. There are as many as thousands of web resources to read on MSS and her singing and understandably every one ever listen to MSS amma will be addicted. The bloggers are almost mesmerized about this. The hope is that all readers of the blog also read and try to know about these legends. All they did was dedicated their life to one cause and that was singing their heart out every time. The rest all happened around them.
Today we like to highlight all the singers that mentioned on the blog are equally passionate about what they are doing with their singing on Smule. Be encouraging to everybody, complement each other. Ranjani and Lakshmi are very collaborative and many others like Vidya, Rama madam, Ranjani V., SreeKrishnan, Venkat all are very open-minded beautiful singers from Tamil Smule Sing. We are very happy we were able to share a piece of your singing here and write about all that musical journey. Write to us when you have time. We appreciate people participation here much. All the best to all singers. Shout out goes to Shabir, the man of his words.
References:
- MS Subbulakshmi: The Definitive Biography, TJS George, Aleph Book Company.
- https://www.msstribute.org
POETRY TIME
In this weeks poetry time we are adding a Meera Bhajan originally posted at http://www.gitananda.org/ and thanks for sharing this with us. Beautiful page visit them if you are interested in understanding the meanings of Meera Bhajans.
| Meera Ko Prabhu Sachi Dasi Banao – Lord, Make Mira Your True Servant |
References : http://www.gitananda.org/ |
The great India Singers on Smule Sing 