Kavita a beautiful poem indeed!

By: Molly, IndiaFM
Friday, June 29, 2007

Life is all about the right things happening at the right time. That is what I have believed ever since that one post card I wrote changed the entire course and direction of my life. Some days ago, I found a distinguished sister-believer in what I believed in, the singer whose humility more than her amazing talent is one of her strongest point, Kavita Krishnamurthy. She was thinking a day after receiving her major award within a very short time, the Samrat Vikramaditya Award from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh. She had earlier received the Lata Mangeshkar (the singer she reveres as her icon) Award from the Madhya Pradesh Government and a little before that she was conferred the Padma Shri by the Government of India which she was very honoured and happy to have received at the hands of "a great human being" like President A.P.J. Kalam. She said it was a long journey because of the right things happenings at the right time or nothing happening would have happened for a girl who was a nobody in Bangalore. The string of major awards besides the many other awards she has received inspired her to go back in life and re-live the life of Kavita Krishnamurthy, one of the all-time greats of our times...

She said it was an aunt, Ms. Pratima Bhattacharya who first recognized her talent and brought her to Bombay, the city which is always kind to true talent. She got her admitted to St. Xavier's College where she found all the impetus and the inspiration to make a name as a singer on the campus. Her popularity spread and soon big names like Ameen Sayani, C. Ramchandra, Hemant Kumar and Manna Dey, all of them living legend discovered all that untapped talent in her. She sang for them, she sang with them, she was a part of their troupe which performed not only in India but in different parts of the world.

The right things were happening. She was reaching places. Then Mrs. Jaya Chakravarthy, the mother of Hema Malini, who was known her encouraging young talent in all periods introduced her to music director Laxmikant and Pyarelal and that was actually the beginning of a grand new beginning for her. "LP" first took her on as a dubbing artists but the wonders in her voice had to lead them to give her a break as an independent singer and that is what they did when she sang her first solo song in "Maang Bharo Sajna" and that was twenty-eight years ago...

And during these twenty-eight years Kavita has emerged as one long, endless and sweet "kavita" (poem) of song. She has sung under the batons of all the master music director, for all kinds of films, big and small, in all the major languages of the country, sung a variety of songs from the most poetic and divine to the most popular, from the rich in tradition to the most trivial and what is called modern, sung with every other singer, male and female, sung for all the major actresses, for the connoisseurs of music to the common man who craved to listen to her voice, from presidents, prime ministers, kings and queens, down to the masses who throng musical shows all over the world, sung in Christian Churches and Hindu Temples at all their major festivals, sung the praises of God and about love and the feelings of the common man, she has given her gift to sing as a precious gift to million.

Kavita considered God (Eeshwar) to be her greatest guide and among humans she strongly feels she would be no one or a nomad singing in the desert. What the support of great human being who were also great professional did for her to help her and inspire her to reach where she has is something she can never forget because they were the right guides who led her along the ray all the time.

Every song she has sung has been close to her heart but the songs she sang in films like "Karma", "Saudagar", "Roop Ki Raani Choron Ka Raaja", "Mr. India", "Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam" "1942-A Love Story" and "Devdas" will always stand out. They gave her all the opportunities to prove her versatility. They made her more popular and successful. It was the songs from these films which were responsible for all the awards which she has won, awards which have given her a high but also made her more humble. She has never asked for more than what she deserves, but if there is one award she is waiting for and which is eluding her for years it is the National Award. And to think of it, I always had this feeling that she had already won the award more than once. What are all the learned men and women who judge a singer's talent at the National Awards listening to or doing about? A case of sheer injustice.

Next