I did nothing at all on March 8. After several hectic years of organising poetry and essay contests, art and music pop-ups, book readings and talks, I didn’t organise a single event or a contest or even give a talk this year. I haven’t felt a twinge of guilt and for good reason. I see the torch being carried forward by the sisterhood and it’s a cause for celebration.
‘SaMaRaSa’ – Sisters in Harmony, is a collective of women musicians who believe that music not only entertains and elevates, but can also create change. For International Women’s Day, the group presented ‘Her Voice’ an exploration of compositions created by women or about women, set in the context of a Carnatic concert, but with a novel approach. The musicians explored the nuances of the raga, lyric and soul of the composition, and they shared what each piece means to them through spoken word and poetry.
Manasi Prasad, the vocalist and founder of the group, is an accomplished musician and arts management professional. At the event, she sincerely and graciously acknowledged that the idea of making music with women was sparked with the creation of ‘Metronome Station’ an all-woman band for the Under The Raintree Women’s Cultural Festival in 2019. Manasi had at first proposed presenting a concert featuring her with her usual male accompanists. However, the focus of our festival is to showcase women and we encouraged her to come up with a collaborative and contemporary act with female musicians.
Manasi had already begun to make a name for herself by then. Apart from being a trained musician, she is also an alum of the IIMB and was heading the Indian Music Experience, a one-of-its-kind museum dedicated to music, in Bangalore. She could very well have shot down our idea and gone her way. But she took some time to think and accepted the mandate despite its challenges. The result was extraordinary and led to the launch of a brand new all-woman fusion band comprising Manasi Prasad (vocals), Siri Narayan (Rap), Shalini Mohan (Bass guitar), Sumana Chandrashekar (ghatam and hand pan) and Padma Priya (Keyboard). The concert was electrifying and the band has since performed on various occasions.
While she still gets requests for fusion music, Manasi set out to explore a similar format with classical music and teamed up with Aditi Krishnaprakash (violin) and Deepika Sreenivasan (mridangam). She told me, “We found that our wavelengths matched, perhaps because we had similar backgrounds and lived experiences. We also felt the need for support and friendship in our musical journeys, which can often be quite lonely. So we decided to come together and create and present classical music that we personally connected with, hoping that we could also reach that connection to audiences.”
That they connected to the audience was established beyond doubt. The concert was sold out and a hundred people had come expecting a typical Carnatic concert. Seventy per cent of them were silver-haired veterans who one would presume were from rather conservative backgrounds. It was therefore gratifying that every single woman and man wholeheartedly endorsed the feminist sentiments of the performance. The lined faces in the audience reflected a lifetime of experiences, the opportunities that they either grabbed or passed by, for themselves and the women in their lives. When they left at the end of the concert that night, perhaps they went home to make the path smoother for their daughters/ daughters-in-law, granddaughters, colleagues and caregivers, and as some younger people said later, for their mothers and themselves.
Veteran vocalist Nagamani Srinath who gave a recap of the struggles women musicians faced in the past, endorsed Sisters in Harmony for developing a contemporary and relevant worldview. It was a measure of the success of not only the artistes’ musical proficiency but the power of art forms to bring about cultural change. It turned out to be not just an evening of excellent raga and rhythm but a meaningful celebration of the theme of Women’s History Month 2024 – ‘Women Who Advocate for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion’. While there are many more miles that we need to walk to reach equality, it’s uplifting to see the path being illuminated.
PS: Amid eye-rolls upon getting ‘happy women’s day’ messages from men who fancy themselves to be woke or the tone-deaf discounts by brands that have appropriated the occasion, here’s a shout-out to truly evolved men like Xavier Prabhu of PR Hub who wrote, “Happy women’s day till we don’t need to celebrate one as each woman in this world feels truly empowered” (sic). While a day or a month is not enough to focus on women and create a gender-equal world, I am celebrating the transformative power of art in advocating social change and the contributions of women and supportive allies in advancing gender equality. – Sandhya Mendonca is an author and host of ‘Spotlight with Sandhya’ podcast.