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PHOTO: R. SHIVAJI RAO

MUSICAL BONDING Ranjani and Gayatri don’t always practise together and believe in giving each other their creative space

That is the feeling one is infused with when listening to the melodious voices of the sisters Ranjani and Gayatri. It leaves you with a transcendent experience.

Born in a music-loving family, Ranjani and Gayatri had a great grounding in classical music from a very early age. Their father, who had a collection of tapes and recordings of yesteryear stalwarts, encouraged the sisters to listen to them. While this helped them hone their skills, their mother, a trained singer, taught them the nuances of classical music. Meanwhile, they also learned to play the violin, displaying enormous talent for it. They gave their first stage performance when Ranjani was 12 and Gayatri, nine.

“The music we listened to early on has helped us reach where we are today and has been our greatest strength,” says Ranjani. “Listening to all that music has helped in my spontaneity and creative ability,” agrees Gayatri. “I hate to be predictable and always like to surprise myself at each and every concert,” she adds. Though they excelled in playing the violin, they found that they could sing equally well and thus began their tryst with Carnatic vocal. When their singing took on newer and larger dimensions, they decided to devote their career to vocal music and the violin took a backseat. The sisters admit that they couldn’t have given equal attention to both. “We could effortlessly switch over to vocal because of the good foundation which we had right from the start,” says Gayatri. There has been no looking back for them since their maiden concert in 1997, which won accolades from music aficionados. Their guru, P.S. Narayanaswamy, a highly acclaimed vocalist, gave them one piece of advice they strictly follow — give the audience a measured fare, lest it raises expectations too high. A surprising feature of the sisters is that they do not practice together at all times. To give a good concert, the sisters say that they give each other enough space and freedom to explore their creativity on stage. “Since we grew up learning together, we understand each other well.

This has been our strength and sets us apart from other duos,” they say. This also gives way to some healthy arguments between them after the concert. “I can’t wait to start our arguments after reaching home, I sometimes say it on stage, when I get a moment,” laughs Gayatri.

The sisters are also well known for the variety they present at a concert. “We definitely plan our concert ahead in order to present a variety of composers, language songs, kala pramana, and so on.” The sisters were the first to popularise the singing of viruttams (poem or shloka) before commencing a song and also signing off a concert with abhangs. “Viruttams were traditionally sung in the olden days and somewhere along the way people stopped singing them. We have revived them by giving special attention to the choice and presentation of a piece,” says Ranjani.

The same goes for their rendition of abhangs, which they have mastered by learning from a specialist, and which they presented at their recent concert at the Kalotsav at the Odukathur Mutt in Bangalore.It will not come as a surprise that Gayatri has sung a classical piece for the film “Morning Raga”. The sisters have also sung a classical piece for a Tamil film. Gayatri is of the opinion that singing too often for films would affect their classical singing to some extent. Gayatri is an avid listener to yesteryear stalwarts like Ramnad Krishnan, K.V. Narayanaswamy and in Hindustani music Rashid Khan to name a few.

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