One Voice, Many Spaces: a Contemporary Female Self-Taught Musician’S Pathways Into Tamil Film Song Cover Culture in Chennai, South India

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ONE VOICE, MANY SPACES: A CONTEMPORARY FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIAN’S PATHWAYS INTO TAMIL FILM SONG COVER CULTURE IN CHENNAI, SOUTH INDIA

NINA MENEZES

A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2018

To Vandana, whose life and quirky curiosity inspired this work. The voices —hers, theirs, and mine— are not my creation They are part of the paths hidden until now the paths we have been the paths we are the paths we will uncover They are all a part of her, them, and I Like every story, this one is based on a truth— hers, theirs, and mine.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am indebted to several individuals—across two continents— who were so generous with their time and support. Thanks to Vandana; without her story, music, dynamic personality, and passion to persevere I would not have uncovered the many cover spaces for Tamil film song in such a short time. I am grateful for her friendship, and the conversations we shared about music and life as we sipped on suda suda filter kapi and munched on idlis and vadas at the local Murugan Idli Kadai. Vandana’s sister,

Vagu, and their extended network of self-taught musicians—Shantha, Alex, Prabhu, and

Achu—shared their experiences as self-taught musicians within the cover scene. Their passion, adaptability, and self-discovery made fieldwork informative, rewarding, and above all a source of inspiration. I am thankful for their continued friendship.

I acknowledge some of the popular Tamil film musicians—A.R. Rahman,

Ilaiyaraja, Pop Shalini, Bhavatharini and Justin Prabhakaran—whose work has provided opportunities for me to collaborate over the years. More importantly, it is their work that has inspired this new breed of self-taught musicians who have turned their passion for film music into a creative profession.

I am grateful to my doctoral committee. Larry Crook, my advisor provided the space and freedom to explore and be creative with my area of research. His seminar classes on Popular Music, as well as Music and Place have influenced my work.

Welson Tremura’s sage advice that “ethnomusicology is about the people making music” prepared and guided me throughout my fieldwork in Chennai. Silvio dos Santos has been a significant role model; his scholarly advice and unwavering support have made me a better scholar. Vasudha Narayanan, a storehouse of knowledge on the

Indian subcontinent, fueled my interest in Indian film studies. I am grateful to my

doctoral committee for their reading, insightful comments, and suggestions on various drafts of this work.

Virginia Woolf, in her essay A Room of One’s Own (1929) asserted: “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write.” The University of Florida

Graduate School Dissertation Travel Award (2016) and the Graduate School

Dissertation Award (2018) made fieldwork possible. Various travel grants from the

School of Music, College of Arts, the Office of Research and Graduate Programs, and the Student government (BOCC) from 2014-2017 facilitated conference presentations.

Thanks to these travel-funding sources, in 2017 I received recognition at the annual

Society for Ethnomusicology conference for my contribution to women’s and gender studies, South Asian Performing Arts, and fieldwork by way of the Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy, and the Wong-Tolbert Student Paper Prizes. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the spaces that facilitated the writing process: the libraries at University of Floirda,

Gainesville’s coffee shops, my room with a view overlooking the duck pond, and the few months I was fortunate to live at the Dragon’s Lair. A big thank you to Sophia Acord and the Center for Humanities for the week-long retreat at The Austin Cary Forest Learning

Center during summer 2018, which enabled me to revise a draft of my dissertation.

Finally, my deepest love and gratitude to my family who have seen me at my best and worst. To my mother, Jean, who nurtured my musical and academic interests and fortified me with grit. My husband, Nathan, who moved to Florida with me, supported me emotionally through the writing process, and above all encouraged me to tell this story. Umrao and Mia, your feline companionship—not to mention distraction— made writing less arduous.

TABLE OF CONTENTS page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... 4

LIST OF TABLES ...... 10

LIST OF FIGURES ...... 11

LIST OF EXAMPLES ...... 18

ABSTRACT ...... 19

CHAPTER

1 DISCOVERING CHENNAI’S TAMIL FILM SONG COVER CULTURE WITH A FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIAN ...... 21

Vandana Mazan ...... 21 What Led Me to Vandana and the Tamil Film Music Cover Scene ...... 22 Covers and Cover Practices ...... 28 Navigating Cover Performance Spaces with Vandana ...... 32 Outline of Chapters ...... 33 Within the Space of a Cover Song ...... 33 Small-Scale Recording Studios Spaces ...... 34 Live Concert Cover Performance Spaces ...... 35 Pedagogical Spaces ...... 35 Music Reality Television Show Spaces ...... 36 Live Streaming Spaces...... 36 Pathways to and Beyond Cover Spaces ...... 37 Ethnographic Methods and Methodology...... 38 Multi-sited Ethnography ...... 38 Ethnographic Methods ...... 38 The Individual in Ethnomusicology ...... 43 History of Women’s Roles and Self-fashioning in Indian Film Music Production .... 45 Traditional Gendered Role of Female Playback Singers in Mainstream Cinema ...... 45 Evolving Musical Identity of Contemporary Playback Singers ...... 48 Self-taught Musicians’ Pathways into Film Music Production through Cover Performance ...... 50 Female Self-fashioning, Female Respectability, and Social Mobility within the Cover Scene ...... 51 Concepts ...... 55 Space and Pathways ...... 55 Mainstream ...... 56 Cover Scene ...... 57 Contribution of this Ethnographic Study ...... 59

2 WITHIN THE SPACE OF A COVER SONG: FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIANS TRANSFORMING THE CANON ...... 61

Stumbling Upon a Cover of ‘Adiye Manam Nilluna’ ...... 61 History of Women’s Roles in Indian Cinema ...... 68 Female Playback Singers in Indian Cinema – The Lady and the Vamp ...... 70 “Adiye Manam Nilluna,” from Neengal Kettavai ...... 73 Non-filmic Covers of “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di” ...... 90 Mazan Sisters’ Cover, ‘Tribute to the Glamour Queen, Late Silk Smitha’ ...... 95 Conclusion ...... 103

3 “YOU’RE NOTHING WITHOUT THE STUDIO:” FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIANS CLAIMING STUDIO SPACE AND ROLES ...... 107

First Visit to D-Studio, Valasaravakkam ...... 116 Studio as a Space for Storytelling and Socializing ...... 118 Studio as a Space for Gaining Musical and Technological Skills ...... 123 Studio as a Space for Negotiation ...... 126 Studio as a Space for Collaboration ...... 129 Studio as a Sacred Space ...... 132 First Visit D-Studio, Velachery—“The World’s Smallest Studio” ...... 138 Vandana Transcends the Studio ...... 143 Conclusion ...... 145

4 LIVE PERFORMANCE SPACES: FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIANS NAVIGATING AND NETWORKING WITHIN LIVE PERFORMANCE SPACES ... 147

Wedding Gigs: From Gattimelam and Light Music Troupes to Live Bands ...... 148 The Term ‘Light Music’ ...... 150 The Emergence of Light Music Artists and Bands for Live Performance ...... 152 Dhivyaraja Shruthi Light Music Orchestra ...... 156 The Mazans Negotiate a Deal with Wedding Gig Clients ...... 160 Real and Reel-Life Contemporary Tamil Hindu Weddings ...... 168 The Transnational Wedding Gig ...... 174 Covers for a Cause: Hierarchies, Roles, and Remuneration ...... 176 Gigs at Shopping Malls ...... 181 Popular Playback Singer Benny Dayal’s Mall Gig ...... 182 Project Triplet’s Gig at Phoenix Mall ...... 185 The Mazan Sisters’ Socio-Musical Formations ...... 189 6MB ...... 189 Tamil Film Song Cover Band Socio-Musical Formations...... 191 Conclusion ...... 195

5 TOWARD A PEDAGOGICAL THIRD SPACE: A FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIAN EMPOWERS AMATEUR SINGERS ...... 197

Self-taught Musician Vandana and Vagu’s Non-formal Learning Process ...... 199

Amateur Musician Shantha’s Non-formal Learning Trajectory ...... 213 A Voice Lesson with Shantha and Vandana ...... 217 WhatsApp ...... 222 Practice Journal and Phone Recorder ...... 223 YouTube ...... 224 Tanpura Droid ...... 225 VLC Media Player ...... 226 A Third Space Pedagogy ...... 227 Conclusion ...... 234

6 MUSIC REALITY TELEVISION SHOWS: A FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIAN COPES WITH REJECTION AND RE-INVENTS SELF ...... 236

History of Music Reality Television Shows in a Changing India ...... 238 Music Reality Shows Produced in Chennai ...... 239 Erving Goffman’s Concept of “Cooling Out” ...... 243 Vandana’s Preliminary Audition ...... 245 Vandana’s Failure to Embody Tamil Values ...... 245 Vandana Explodes, Causes a Scene, and Vents ...... 248 Outsmarting the Judges ...... 249 Judging Idiosyncrasies, Biases, and Controversy ...... 249 Minimizing Significance ...... 251 Vandana as Vocal Coach and Guest Performer on Airtel Super Singer’s Mini Series ...... 252 Lord Labkdas and Vandana’s Performance on Airtel Super Singer Set ...... 255 Vandana Accounts for her Unrealized Potential ...... 259 Conclusion ...... 261

7 LIVE STREAMING: A FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIAN ATTAINS STARDOM THROUGH SELF-FASHIONING ...... 263

Erving Goffman’s Presentation of Self in Digiital and Social Media Life ...... 266 Playing the #fame Game ...... 277 Welcoming and Creating a Connection with Audience ...... 278 Song Expectations and Requests ...... 280 (Un)divided Attention ...... 282 Humor...... 283 Intimacy ...... 284 Immediacy ...... 287 Boosting Star Status via Chat, ‘Likes,’ and Emoticons ...... 288 Thanks...... 292 Conclusion ...... 293

8 REFLECTING ON MULTIPLE PATHWAYS LEADING TO CHENNAI’S SPACES AND BEYOND ...... 295

Navigating Multiple Cover Spaces ...... 295

Navigating Pathways ...... 296 Restriction and Freedom from Norms of Female Respectability ...... 298 Sustaining, Enduring and Ephemeral Pathways ...... 300 Pathways Leading to Success and Failure ...... 305 Choice, Decision, and Agency ...... 305 Pathways and Persistence ...... 306 Epilogue ...... 307

LIST OF REFERENCES ...... 312

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 320

LIST OF TABLES

Table page

2-1 Musical, Textual and Visual Analysis of “Adiye Manam Nilluna” from Neengal Kettavai (1984) ...... 74

2-2 “Adiye Manam Nilluna,” Cover – Musical, Textual and Visual Analysis ...... 96

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure page

1-1 Vandana Mazan. Photo from Vandana’s Facebook profile...... 21

1-2 Results of a Pilot Study of Small-Scale and Home Studio Owners in Chennai in 2015...... 30

1-3 Screenshot of author’s initial Facebook communication with Vandana on September 3, 2015...... 32

2-1 Screenshot of author’s Facebook communication with male home studio lead in Chennai September 3, 2015...... 62

2-2 Screenshot of Mazan sisters’ first YouTube cover of A.R. Rahman’s “New York Nagaram” produced under pseudonyms “Vasudha Theevra” and “Yugav.” ...... 63

2-3 Screenshot of Vandana and Vagu’s second cover “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di,” produced under their original names...... 63

2-4 Silk Smith in the role of the vamp in ‘Nethu Rathiri Yamma’ from Sakalakala Vallavan (1982)...... 67

2-5 Arun and Smitha dance suggestively to the instrumental introduction...... 83

2-6 Arun and Smitha singing and dancing in non-diegetic scenic locations...... 84

2-7 Arun makes explicit sexual advances. Photo screenshot from video...... 85

2-8 Author’s translation of Charnam 3 and 4 “Adiye Manam Nilluna,” from Neengal Kettavai...... 86

2-9 Visuals of Smitha in the throes of ecstacy...... 89

2-10 Live-concert rendition of “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di,” by playback singers Anitha and Karthik in Washington D.C...... 91

2-11 Local singers perfomer ‘Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di,’ at a college alumnus meet in Salem...... 93

2-12 Karakāṭṭam (hereditary folk, street performers) perfoming “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di.” ...... 94

2-13 “Adiye Manam Nilluna,” Original and Mazan Cover ...... 99

2-14 Mazan Duo’s cover depicting modest stock profile photographs of female actor Silk Smitha...... 99

3-1 Bhavatharini working on an original song with Pop Shalini in her home studio. 110

3-2 Google Map depicting the Mazan’s D-studios in Valasaravakkam and Velachery...... 111

3-3 Valasaravakkam fruit and vegetable market by alleys (left) and local eateries on the main road (center and right). Photos by author...... 113

3-4 Google Map depicting some of the small-scale recording studios in Valasaravakkam ...... 114

3-5 D-Studio Valasaravakkam Workstation at the end of the room (left) and waiting area by studio entrance (right) from D-Studio Facebook page...... 117

3-6 A four-foot black and white photograph of Vandana’s grandparents in the studio. Photo by author...... 120

3-7 Vagu (left) and Vandana (right) preparing to perform with Dhivyaraja Shruthi at a wedding reception. Photos from Vandana selfie’s collection shared with author...... 123

3-8 Project Triplet’s cover of Michael Jackson’s ‘You rock my world.’ Screenshot from YouTube cover video...... 130

3-9 Vandana’s photos of her tonsured head as evidence for her firm faith. Photos from Vandana’s selfie collection shared with author...... 133

3-10 Hindu religious iconography. Photo by author...... 134

3-11 Image of Pillaiyar in a room behind the workstation in D-studio Valasaravakkam. Photo by author...... 135

3-12 Vandana poses outside D-Studio Velachery as she welcomes me to “the world’s smallest studio.” Photo by author...... 139

3-13 Workstation at D-Studio Velachery. Photo by author...... 140

3-14 Arun right before he walks into the recording booth at D-Studio Velachery. Photo by author...... 141

3-15. D-Studio Velachery’s proximity to the Indian Institute of technology’s campus. 142

3-16 Vandana’s #fametamil live-stream performance on April 1, 2016. Screenshot from live stream...... 145

4-1 Vandana provides her #fame audience with a glimpse of the gattimelam. Author’s recording of Vandana’s #fametamil live stream Screenshot from live-stream...... 148

4-2 Actor Nagesh comically conducts a gattimelam in 1970’s Tamil film Ethiroli (left)and traditional gattimelam performers in contemporary Chennai at a local wedding in Chennai (right)...... 149

4-3 Usha Uthup performing a cover of ‘If’ by Bread on Doordarshan, national TV (left) and featured as a western nightclub singer in the popular 1972 Hindi film Bombay to Goa (right)...... 155

4-4 From left to right: B.V. Ramanan & Party, Lakshman Shruthi, Sai Sai Shruthi Light Music Orchestra and troupes. Photos from troupes’ websites...... 156

4-5 Dhivyaraja Shruthi’s promotional banner displayed at live performances. Photos from website...... 157

4-6 Srikanth contestant from Airtel Super Singer Junior presents a scintillating performance with Dhivyaraja Shruthi...... 159

4-7 Dhivyaraja and his wedding gig clients negotiating a deal. Photo by author. ... 161

4-8 “Making of” wedding videos in Chennai commodify live experiences as a cinematic spectacle. Screenshots from YouTube videos...... 170

4-9 Vignettes from Tamil film film Unnodu Ka (2016) (left) and real (right) life weddings on YouTube. Screenshot from YouTube videos...... 172

4-10 Achu’s band Pranetra accompanies Airtel Super Singers Priyanka and Kaushik at a wedding in Raja Muthaiya Hall. Photo from Achu’s Facebook Profile...... 173

4-11 Vagu’s mobile uploads on Facebook before the Wedding gig performance in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photo from Vagu’s Facebook profile...... 174

4-12 Vagu checking out a guitar store in Bentley Music in Bukit Bintang and sightseeing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photos Vagu’s from Facebook profile...... 175

4-13 Vandana performs with AD and the Band at Sangrash April 2, 2016 and Lion’s Club Inauguration August 25, 2016. Photo from Vandana’s Facebook profile...... 176

4-14 Official posters created by organizers of Sangarsh featuring Airtel Super Singers. Photos from Sangarsh’16 Facebook page...... 177

4-15 Poster created by AD and the Band for Sangarsh’s. Photos from Facebook page for Sangarsh’16...... 177

4-16 Selfies of Airtel Super Singers and members of AD and the Band after the Sangarsh performance. Photos from Vandana to author...... 179

4-17 Little boy cured from pediatric acute leukemia dances on stage at the Sangarsh’16 performance. Photo by Prabhu...... 180

4-18 Film Playback Singer Benny Dayal Performs Popular Film Songs at Forum Vijaya Mall February 6, 2106. Photo by author...... 183

4-19 Phoenix Market City’s Film Playback Singer Benny Dayal Performs Popular Film Songs at Forum Vijaya Mall February 6, 2106. Screenshot of website. .... 185

4-20 Poster from Project Triplet’s. Project Triplet’s Facebook page...... 186

4-21 Vandana playlist for Phoenix Market City gig...... 187

4-22 Nina Menezes (Author) performs with Project Triplet at Phoenix Market City Amphitheatre March 13, 2016. Photo by Prabhu...... 188

4-23 6MB’s ‘Kill Smoking’ Campaign at Besant Nagar Elliot’s Beach, April 11, 2016. Photots from 6MB Facebook page...... 190

4-24 6MB’s tree planting and basic life support events. Photots from 6MB Facebook page...... 190

4-25 6MB’s multimedia presence. Photots from 6MB Facebook page...... 191

4-26 Terrace Jamming session where amateur and self-taught musicians showcased their talent and grew their networks. Photo Terrace Jamming Facebook page...... 192

4-27 Jamming in the studio: From left to right Kiran (mridangam) Vagu (Acoustic guitar), and Brainard (on the bass guitar). Photo by author...... 193

4-28 Vandana and Vagu perform covers of Tamil film songs on poplar cable television music shows. Photo from Vandana’s Facebook Profile...... 196

4-29 Vandana’s solo cover performance on popular Tamil radio and television shows. Photo from Vandana’s Facebook Profile...... 196

5-1 Vidya (lead singer), Vandana (keyboard), and Vagu (electric guitar) performing with Dhivyaraja Shruthi at a wedding reception in Agarwal Sabha Bhavan, 2011. Photo from Dhivyaraja Shruthi website...... 201

5-2 Vandana’s website, http://earn2singonline.com under her pseudonym. Photo screenshot from website...... 206

5-3 Testimonials of recording studio clients curated on Vandana’s vocal coaching website...... 207

5-4 Playback Shankar Mahadevan’s eponymous Academy website: https://www.shankarmahadevanacademy.com/. Photo screenshot from website...... 207

5-5 Vinod Kumar teaches students film songs at his Tamil Light Music Coaching Centre. Photos from website...... 208

5-6 Vandana taught female students within their domestic settings (bedroom). Photo by author...... 210

5-7 Vandana teaching male students in public spaces – park (left) and restaurants (right). Photo by author...... 211

5-8 Model of Shantha’s Learning Trajectory Based on Eraut’s Typology of Non- Formal Learning (2004)...... 214

5-9 Shantha’s cover of Hindi film song ‘Tenu Samjhawan’ from Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania (2014) on Facebook (left) and YouTube (right). Screenshot from Shantha’s acebook profile and YouTube video...... 216

5-10 Shantha’s voice lesson with Vandana. Photo by author...... 218

5-11 Vandana demonstrates mouth position with a toothpick. Photo by author...... 220

5-12 Vandana and Shantha rescheduling a lesson. WhatsApp communication shared with author...... 222

5-13 Shantha’s evaluation of her homework sent to Vandana on Whatsapp. WhatsApp communication shared with author...... 224

5-14 Vandana (left) and Shantha (right) share their film cover songs on YouTube. Screenshot from Vandana and Shantha’s YouTube covers...... 225

5-15 Tanpura Droid App. Screenshot from app...... 225

5-16 VLC Media Player. Screenshot from app...... 226

5-17 Vandana demonstrates how to use VLC in conjunction with MP3s and YouTube. Photo by author...... 227

5-18 Vandana’s pedagogical model for teaching film songs ...... 231

5-19 Shantha’s Film Covers on her YouTube Channel. Screenshot from Shantha’s YouTube channel...... 232

5-20 Shantha’s digital invitations to her wedding. Photo Shantha’s WhatsApp communication to author...... 233

6-1 Vandana reveals a potential opportunity to participate on Airtel Super Singer. Screenshot of WhatsApp communication from Vandana to author...... 236

6-2 Members of Lord Labakdas – Akilesh, Yazhini and Ajeedh perform for round one of Airtel Super Singer Mini Series. Photo Airtel Super Singer Season 5 Facebook page...... 253

6-3 Vandana’s excited about forthcoming participation on Airtel Super Singer. Screenshot of WhatsApp communication from Vandana to author...... 254

6-4 Vandana’s selfie with Airtel Super Singer’s keyboardist Stephen (left) and Pragathi, former winner of Airtel Super Singer Senior (right). Photo from Vandana’s Facebook page...... 257

6-5 Vandana’s Performance with Lord Labakdas. Screenshot from Vandana’s video footage to author...... 258

7-1 Female #fametamil performers Vagu (left), Prashanti (center), and Rizfa (right) live-streaming from their mobile phones within the confines of their bedroom. Screenshot from live stream...... 264

7-2 Vandana in the recording studio. Screenshot from live stream...... 264

7-3 Talent Manager Dipthi’s message requesting #famestars to send in photos and videos to promote talent. Screenshot of WhatsApp communication to author...... 267

7-4 #fame talent manager Dipthi’ announcement concerning self-presentation strategies and Vandana’s response. Screenshot of WhatsApp communication to author...... 268

7-5 Daily schedules of Vandana’s beams on #fametamil. Photo screenshot of Vandana’s #fame profile...... 268

7-6 Vandana’s Facebook promotions of her first beam 1.25.16 (left), Valentine’s Day special on 2.14.16 (center) and #famedancemob event for International Dance Day 4.28.16 (right). Screenshot from Vandana’s Facebook page...... 269

7-7 Vandana “liked” and “shared” of Anoop Nair’s schedule (left) and Rizfa’s schedule, encouraging audiences to watch her “vayaadi friend.” Screenshot from Vandana’s Facebook page...... 270

7-8 Vandana’s #fame self-promotion post for collaborating with Anoop and her live-stream with drummer friend Achu. (right). Screenshot from Vandana’s Facebook page (left) and from live-stream by author. (right)...... 271

7-9 Vandana’s airbrushed profile picture taken with her mobile phone camera app. Photo from Vandana selfie collection shared with author...... 272

7-10 Vandana in the ill-lit studio (left) experiments with her DIY portable photography studio light umbrella to make her look glamorous on her #fametamil live-stream (right). Photos from Vandana selfie collection shared with author...... 273

7-11 Vandana’s WhatsApp pics of her hostel room sent to author April 2, 2017. Photos by Vandana shared with author...... 274

7-12 Vandana’s #fame set-up in her hostel room. Photos from Vandana to author. 274

7-13 Bada$$MeeIDevil, Vandana’s regular followers commented on the adjustments she made to her appearance and live-stream setting. Screenshot from live stream...... 275

7-14 Vandana live-streaming from the green room (left), streets of Chennai (centre), Pune airport (right). Screenshot from live stream...... 276

7-15 Adengappa requests Vadnana to sing a more contemporayr song. Screenshot from live stream...... 281

7-16 Santosh’s Facebook Selfie with #famestar Vandana in the real world. Screenshot from Vandana’s Facebook page...... 287

7-17 Mad_Natz’s rants on viewer’s “dislikes.” Screenshot from live stream...... 289

7-18 List of Negative, Positive, and Local Emoticons curated by author from #fame. Photos of emoticons from #fame app...... 291

7-19 #Fame shuts down in August 2016. Screenshot from #fame’s website...... 294

8-1 Tamil Rock Band Oorka’s post on Facebook on May 12 performing original music at a wedding reception. Screenshot from Oorka’s Facebook page...... 303

8-2 Vandana (extreme left) features as an independent artiste on Monkstar’s website. Screenshot of Monkstar’s website...... 304

8-3 Vandana’s metamorphosis from modern young girl to traditional woman. Photos from Vandana’s Facebook page...... 308

8-4 Soundscape Audio Production Logo designed by her friend Alex. Screenshot from Vandana’s Facebook page...... 309

8-5 Vandana’s promotional video for “SOUNDSCAPE” filmed by Prabhu. Screenshot from Vandana’s Facebook page...... 310

8-6 Vandana working on SOUNDSCAPE projects in her studio. Screenshot from Vandana’s Facebook page...... 311

LIST OF EXAMPLES

Examples page

1-1 Ilaiyaraaja’s popular Tamil film hit song “Sundari Neeyum Sundaran Njanum” from Tamil film Michael, Madana, Kama Raja (1990). Author’s transcription. .... 24

2-1 18 measure percussion introduction exchange between western drum kit and south Indian thavil to “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di.” Author’s transcription...... 82

2-2 Vocable exchange preceding the pallavi. Author’s transcription...... 83

2-3 Arun’s opening solo pallavi. Author’s transcription...... 84

2-4 Smitha joins Arun with her “Ah-haa…haa hmm” on subsequent pallavis. Author’s transcription...... 86

2-5 Smitha’s more involved exchanges with Arun on the final pallavi. Author’s transcription...... 88

2-6 Mazan Duo’s sparsely textured cover evokes a somber aesthetic. Author’s transcription...... 101

3-1 Transcription of the chant “Om namah Shivaya” on loop played on the porch at D-Studio Valasaravakkam. Author’s transcription ...... 135

4-1 Transcription of Raga Sindhubhairavi in western notation. Author’s transcription...... 151

4-2 ‘Om Namah Shivaya’ chant plays on loop by the entrance of the studio. Author’s transcription...... 161

4-3 Recorded track of ‘Om Namah Shivaya’ chant plays on loop by the entrance of the studio. Author’s transcription...... 167

5-1 Transcription of western F Lydian Mode (Ascending) and Carnatic Kalyani Raga (Arohanam). Author’s transcription...... 203

5-2 Transcription of western F Major scale (Ascending) and Carnatic Śankarābharaṇaṃ Raga (Arohanam). Author’s transcription...... 204

7.1 Transcription of Vandana’s jingle from #fametamil live stream footage. Author’s transcription...... 292

Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

ONE VOICE, MANY SPACES: A CONTEMPORARY FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIAN’S PATHWAYS INTO TAMIL FILM SONG COVER CULTURE IN CHENNAI, SOUTH INDIA

By Nina Menezes

December 2018

Chair: Larry Crook Major: Music

Since the 1950s, the legendary careers attained by pioneering female playback singers in Indian cinema have made playback singing an attractive female profession.

During my ethnographic encounters in spring 2016, in Chennai, South India, I witnessed young, middle-class, self-taught female musicians struggle to enter the highly- competitive regional-language Tamil film music industry by performing "covers" or live and recorded re-enactments of popular Tamil film songs.

Unlike most women who conform to the gendered role of singer, Vandana Mazan explored multiple musical roles and spaces for cover performance due to her exceptional circumstances. In a short time, Vandana rose from an unknown figure to a cover artist with a respectable online fan following. As I followed her trajectory, several questions emerged: What role does cover performance play in the life of a liminal figure like Vandana? What can cover performance within multiple settings reveal about experiences on the margins of a male-dominated industry? How do self-taught female musicians like Vandana make sense of such experiences within the larger context of urban life in Chennai?

To address these questions, I draw on face-to-face and virtual ethnographic encounters with Vandana and her socio-musical participants (fellow performers, audience members, gatekeepers, and students) within five distinct settings (small-scale recording studios, live-stage concert venues, her mobile teaching studio, a music reality television show, and a live-streaming platform). Vandana’s trajectory attests to the opportunities the cover scene affords self-taught female artists to acquire musical and technological skill, fashion musical identities for wider visibility, experience failure and success, and sometimes attain stardom.

Drawing on Will Straw’s concept of “scene,” and extending feminist concepts of

“third space,” this ethnography uncovers a vibrant cover scene for Tamil film music—an area of scholarship largely overlooked in favor of playback singing in Indian cinema.

Stephen Greenblatt’s ideas of “self-fashioning” provide a lens to explore how ordinary self-taught musicians like Vandana challenge and re-shape long-standing male-centric views. This ethnography offers a framework to analyze cover scenes within global contexts and demonstrates how the cover scene in Chennai provides an alternate, yet complementary space for belonging to Tamil film music production.

CHAPTER 1 DISCOVERING CHENNAI’S TAMIL FILM SONG COVER CULTURE WITH A FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIAN

Vandana Mazan

Figure 1-1. Vandana Mazan. Photo from Vandana’s Facebook profile.

In fall 2015, I stumbled upon Vandana Mazan through her YouTube “covers” or re-enactments of popular regional-language Tamil film songs (Figure 1-1). As I began fieldwork in the following spring, little did I imagine that this middle-class, female self- taught1 musician would help me uncover a vibrant contemporary cover scene for popular Tamil film music in Chennai, South India. Like many young women, Vandana dreamed of becoming a playback singer2 in South India’s highly-competitive Tamil film

1 Throughout this ethnography, I use “self-taught” instead of DIY (Do-it-Yourself), musicians. While DIY musicians in global contexts and self-taught musicians in Chennai typically share the same musical practices of making things by themselves, the term DIY emerged in 1960 within the American context to refer to anarchist counterculture movements. It included the 1970s punk musical practices and later expanded to the indie and rock scenes. As I will explain later in this chapter, Chennai’s cover artists typically do not seek to overthrow Tamil film song aesethtics. More importantly, these local musicians self- identify with the term “self-taught” rather than DIY.

2 With limitations of early film technology, Indian film makers in the 1930s, relied on actors from traditional Indian mythological stage dramas who could act, sing and dance; the mythological format also provided ready-made content and format, thereby facilitating filming. In the 1940s, actors were no longer required to sing; they were chosen chiefly on the merits of their physical appearance and acting skills. The

music industry. Such aspirations are fueled by the iconic status of pioneering female singers who have made playback singing an attractive female profession. Unlike other young women who adhere to the circumscribed gendered role of singer, Vandana’s unique circumstances facilitated an exploration of multiple musical roles within a variety of cover performance spaces. The story I tell in this ethnography is a compelling tale of how this contemporary middle-class, female, self-taught musician transformed her life through cover performance.

What Led Me to Vandana and the Tamil Film Music Cover Scene

But before I begin with Vandana’s personal and musical trajectories, this chapter must first go back to mine. The series of events I describe in the following pages are in no way inconsequential; they reveal my pathways: my own childhood and early adult life as a western musician in Madras/Chennai;3 my earliest encounters with Tamil film songs; my entry into Tamil film music production in the 1990s; the organizational and technological transformations I witnessed within the industry in 1998; and finally, my decision to study music in the United States, which led me to research Indian film music

introduction of playback recording technology created a niche for skilled vocal specialists called playback singers. At the time of filming, a singer’s pre-recorded songs played back over a loudspeaker, enabling actors to lip-synch their parts; the terms playback singing, and playback singer thus became common terminology within film music production and popular culture.

3 Until the 1990s, major Indian cities bore British colonial names. During the 1990s, right-wing political parties in northern India began to restore cities’ names in the vernacular. Bombay became Mumbai; Calcutta is now Kolkata. The British colonial name Madras is believed to be etymologically derived from the coastal port, Madrasanpattanam. Legend also has it that Catholic Portuguese settlers in the region, prior to British colonial rule referred to the town as Mãe de Deus (Mother of God). During the 1990s, as major Indian cities underwent name changes, the state government of Tamil Nadu officially changed the name to Chennai in 1996. Throughout this dissertation, I refer to the colonial name “Madras” to indicate events that occurred prior to 1996, and “Chennai” to those that occur post-1996, unless the text or the speaker indicates otherwise. I wish to point out, however, that some young Tamilian informants have privileged the name “Chennai” uniformly because they were very young when the change occurred and never knew the city as “Madras.” In most instances, however, young Tamilians adopt the name “Chennai” uniformly to assert their pride in their Tamil heritage.

and women’s roles in film music production. These are the pathways that eventually led me to Vandana. Since Vandana’s trajectory would later intertwine with mine (the ethnographer), my story is crucial to the understanding of my positionality within this research on cover culture. In this chapter, my voice intersects with the voices of scholars to provide a framework for this study.

Although I was born and raised in Madras (the capital city of the southeastern

Indian state of Tamil Nadu), in terms of ethnicity and cultural background, I trace my family lineage to a small ethnic community from the southwestern part of India called

Mangalore. As a Mangalorean Roman Catholic among the local Tamilian

(predominantly Hindu) population in Madras, I am a minority. My grandparents moved to

Madras in the early 1940s when India was still under colonial rule. I was raised with their nostalgia for the “good old British days” and its western cosmopolitan values. The music I listened to, learned, and performed was predominately western classical and popular music.

However, growing up in Madras during the 1980s and 1990s, I recall the pervasive presence of regional-language Tamil film songs. Film songs disseminated via cassette and radio technology formed the dominant soundscape of city life. Every morning during the month of margazhi,4 I woke up to fervent devotional film songs blaring from a loudspeaker erected at the Vinayaka Temple down the road. During the election season, political parties blasted film songs with emotionally-charged lyrics at their rallies to appeal to their voters. Throughout the year, from as early as 5:30 a.m.

4 Margazhi refers to the Tamil Hindu lunar calendar month from December 15 to January 15. This month is a time for spiritual ripening, a time for preparation and renewal for Hindus to receive the divine grace of the Gods. At the end of this holy month of margazhi, Tamil Hindus celebrate Pongal, the harvest festival.

until as late as 10:00 p.m., the lilting voices of playback singers wafted from transistor radios installed within coffee stalls, beckoning working-class men to and from their daily work. Amidst the hustle and bustle of the city, Tamil film songs resounded from vehicles at stop lights, interspersed with the sounds of angry honking.

When I visited friends, I heard their mothers and aunts ease the tedium of their daily house chores by singing along to popular film songs like “Sundari Neeyum

Sundara Njanum” telecasted on radio and television stations (Example 1-1):

Example 1-1. Ilaiyaraaja’s popular Tamil film hit song “Sundari Neeyum Sundaran Njanum” from Tamil film Michael, Madana, Kama Raja (1990). Author’s transcription.

Every Friday at 7:30 p.m., families and friends across the city huddled around their television sets to watch Oliyum Oliyum (Sound and Light), a compilation of popular

Tamil film songs on Doordarshan’s regional language network. Social and cultural events were never complete without people—young and old—singing and dancing to film songs. When teenagers got together with friends, they engaged in animated discussions on the film music director’s5 use of a raga, the lyricist’s imagery or wit, or the artistry of individual singers. But invariably, it was the iconic voices of popular female playback singers in mainstream film music production that dominated such

5 Film music composers in Indian cinema are traditionally called “film music directors.”

conversations. If the pervasive presence of singers’ voices evokes admiration, then it also inspires emulation. Ambitious teenagers discussed the pros and cons of singing a potential song for a school or college competition; sighs and lamentations followed, acknowledging their inability to replicate the singer’s virtuosity on the recording.

During the 1990s, my unique background allowed me to carve a niche for myself as a western musician and educator in Chennai. My musical networks provided opportunities to sing on soundtracks for Hindi and Tamil cinema. I was drawn into the mysterious, hidden vortex of analog film music production within Chennai’s centralized film recording studios— Prasad Labs, A.V.M. and other small film recording studios— located in and around the vicinity of Kodambakkam.6 I witnessed the artistry of film music directors, musicians, and playback singers whom I had only previously encountered via radio and television.

One evening in 1998, I received a call from my colleague informing me about a film music recording session. I still recall his voice resounding with excitement over the telephone receiver:

There’s a call sheet7 for a film recording today evening. It’s some new music director. I think he used to work for Ilaiyaraaja. I’m not sure what exactly happened, but he came off and started his own studio in Kodambakkam. Studio is in his house itself with all kinds of high-tech equipment. I think this is going to be very different from Raja’s recordings.8

6 It is from this centralized location of the film music industry in Kodambakkam that Tamil cinema is endearingly referred to as Kollywood (Kodambakkam + Hollywood).

7 Call sheet or call time is filmmaking terminology, which refers to the schedule (date, time, and place) when film crew must report for production on the set or studio.

8 Nina Menezes, author’s diary entry from 1998.

That evening, I met film music director, A.R. Rahman for the first time. The studio consisted of two large rooms: one, for the music director and engineers, and the other, a large chamber for singers or instrumentalists. Unlike his predecessors who employed musicians to strictly re-produce their musical ideas, Rahman sang a cluster of notes from the recording room and asked me to improvise. As I improvised with the notes standing in front of the mic, I realized Rahman and his sound producers had started recording. Accustomed to analog recording techniques, I stopped singing and mumbled

I was not ready for a “take” yet. “Be-au-ti-ful! Don’t stop! Keep singing. We’ll record as you sing, and edit later,” he said and continued to record voice samples. The simple melody I sang featured as a leitmotif in Rahman’s Hindi film Taal (1999). This was my first experience with digital audio recording in a state-of-the-art home studio.

My naïve reactions to these encounters and transformations during the 1990s only acquired significance when I began exploring scholarship on popular Indian film music for doctoral coursework in 2012. Scholars of popular Indian film music attribute the shifts that occurred within the film music industry to the introduction of neoliberal policies in the early 1990s.9 Privatization and access to affordable digital recording technology (DAWs) saw a younger generation of film music composers establish small- scale and home recording studios across the city. Technological changes saw the oligarchy, which had held a monopoly in film music production since the 1970s, gradually lose its sway. Along with the technological revolution, organizational and structural transformations soon saw the decentralization of the Tamil film music

9 Gregory Booth, “Traditional Practice and Mass Mediated Music in India,” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 24 no. 2 (1993): 159-174.

industry. Scholars credit Rahman as the pivotal figure whose state-of-the-art home recording studio and collaborative recording practices inspired a younger generation of film music composers and sound producers to experiment with new sonorities and recording techniques.10

Since the mid-1990s, I have witnessed how digital audio workstations and simple computer set-ups with access to digital sound sampling, within small-scale and home studio recording settings in Chennai, have created a new breed of self-taught musicians and sound producers. These young artists draw on modern technology to gain experience and establish themselves as professional musicians. A handful of successful self-trained musicians (predominantly young men) who followed in Rahman’s footsteps, have recently made their débuts in Tamil cinema: Simon K. King (Ainthu Ainthu Ainthu,

2013); Justin Prabhakaran (Pannaiyarum Padminiyum, 2014); and Shyam Benjamin

(Kanavu Variyam, 2017; Kalavu Thozhirchalai, 2017). Some of these musicians like

Simon and Prabhakaran11 have established names for themselves as successful film music directors.

10 Joseph Getter. “Kollywood Goes Global.” in More than Bollywood: Studies in Indian Popular Music. ed., Gregory. D. Booth and Bradley Shope. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 60-74.

11 During my fieldwork in Chennai in 2016, I was fortunate to witness the recording process for all the film songs on Justin Prabaharan’s film Kaalakkoothu (2017). He also featured my voice in the song, “Engeyo Pogum,” YouTube video, posted by “SonyMusicSouthVEVO,” January 3, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=_ZW9k8Dnghw. As a musician, this opportunity enabled me to re-connect and continue my engagements with mainstream film music production. It enabled me to experience the transformations that have taken place in the film music production process since I left India in 2008 in my new role as ethnographer. These experiences allowed me to make connections, compare, and contrast what I witnessed within the cover scene. It enhanced my understanding of the relationship between mainstream and cover culture.

Covers and Cover Practices

Over the last five years, on my trips back home or my online engagements with musicians and their work, I observed many aspiring professional musicians produce

“covers” of popular Tamil film songs. “Covers,” as a musical practice, refers to a

“recording of a popular song by a performer or performers other than those responsible for the original version.”12 The genre also includes re-enactments of popular songs within live settings.13 Covers often serve as tributes to the original artist and reveal a cover artist’s influences.14 In the popular imagination, since covers involve performing mainstream artists’ or composers’ songs, this has inadvertently led to a veneration of the original artist as a source of authenticity and a creative genius, while cover artists remain unacknowledged, and their work is frequently dismissed as a plagiaristic, unimaginative replica of the original.

The ubiquitous practice of covering, however, thrives on an endless “repeating, retrieving, reinventing, reincarnating, rewinding, recycling, reciting, redesigning and reprocessing.”15 Far from exact reduplications of the original, covers frequently involve

“radical reworking.”16 Kurt Mosser suggests the term is “systematically ambiguous” and

“used without the recognition that there are many different kinds of “covers.””17 To make

12 David Beard and Kenneth Gloag, Musicology: The Key Concepts (New York: Routledge, 2005), 322.

13 George Plasketes, “Re-flections on the Cover Age: A Collage of Continuous Coverage in Popular Music,” Popular Music and Society 28 (2005).

14 Don Cusic, “In Defense of Cover Songs: Commerce and Credibility,” in Play it Again: Cover Songs in Popular Music ed. George Plasketes (Vermont: Ashgate, 2010), 222-230.

15 Plasketes, “Re-flections on the Cover Age,” 137.

16 Beard and Gloag, Musicology, 322.

17 Kurt Mosser, "Cover Songs: Ambiguity, Multivalence, Polysemy.” accessed May 15, 2018. http://www.p opular-musicology-online.com/issues/02/mosser.html.

sense of the variety of covers, Mosser offers a taxonomy with five “species of covers.”18

Similarly, Evan Randall Eliot Ware categorizes covers along a continuum— isomorphic

(likeness), metamorphic (dissimilar), and derivative (when a song is re-set to entirely new lyrics and is not dependent on the original for its meaning).19 Ware draws on Michel de Certeau’s theories of creativity to explain how cover artists employ “tactics” to express their own creativity.20 Mosser and Ware’s taxonomies demystify the notion of covers as an uncreative, monolithic category. Mosser and Ware’s works offer a framework to explore the scope for covers as a creative endeavor. However, in no way do they provide a broad analytical approach for cover analysis.

It was the wide variety of covers of popular Tamil films songs that I witnessed on

YouTube, which prompted me to conduct a pilot study in 2015 on cover production

18 Kurt Mosser’s taxonomy of five “species of covers” includes the following: 1) reduplication or exact copy of the original; 2) a minor interpretive cover, which maintains a general sense of the original song in terms of tempo, melody, instrumentation and lyrics, and serves as a homage to the original; 3) a major interpretative cover, which incorporates different musical traditions and perspectives, including changes in tempo, melody, instrumentation, and lyrics; 4) a send-up or ironic cover, which refashions the base song into an entirely new product and serves as a subversive context that reveals layers of meaning and challenges the audience to confront issues or questions in the original; and 5) parody covers, as the name implies, move beyond the ironic to produces a parody; it represents a distinct version that has little to do with the lyrical or musical content of the base.

19 Evan Randall Eliot Ware “Their Ways: Theorizing Reinterpretation in Popular Music,” (PhD Dissertation: University of Michigan, 2015).

20 Evan Randall Eliot Ware draws on Michel de Certeau’s theories of creativity to describe how cover artists respond with “tactics” to express their own creativity in response to the original “base song” (strategy). Michel de Certeau drew a distinction between “strategy” and “tactics”—two terms in military practice necessary to win a war. Traditionally, tactics are subordinate to campaigns, and the campaign is subordinate to the strategy. Strategy presumes power. A strategic leader is a subject; the enemy is the object. However, in The Practice of Everyday Life (1984), de Certeau argues that tactics are not subordinate, but represent a subset to strategy. Tactics adapt to the environment; he likens it to bricolage, a creative process that needs cooperation just as much as it requires competition. He recognizes the inherent contradiction of power as imperfect, subject to change. Besides he also argues that power that strategy evokes is myopic it segregates, builds walls, and obscures vision. Strategy, then is dangerous. Tactics, on the other hand are based on the environment and are in constant flux and are part of an adaptive loop. The readiness to take advantage of change or tactical agility sets can overthrow power.

within home and small-scale recording studio musicians and sound producers (Figure 1-

2). These artists were typically Tamilian middle-class men who acquired musical and technological skill by working on covers; some even worked on commercial projects like television advertisements, radio jingles, and small budget and short films. All revealed their aspirations to follow Rahman’s creative collaborative style and hoped to attain similar star status in Tamil film music production. It was a startling revelation to discover two young women—Vandana and her younger sister, Vagu Mazan— who had the unique opportunity to work as sound producers within their own studio settings.

Figure 1-2. Results of a Pilot Study of Small-Scale and Home Studio Owners in Chennai in 2015.

While the Mazan sisters work on covers along the margins of film music production, only two women—Bhavatharani (Ilaiyaraaja’s daughter) and A.R. Reihana

(Rahman’s sister)—have made their début in Tamil cinema; their family connections have largely eased their entry into film music production. As female film music directors, they are typically assisted by male sound producers and colleagues in the production

process. Moreover, my ethnographic encounters reveled that notions of female respectability, family responsibilities, and perceptions that women must only consider music a dalliance and not a profession have prevented these, and several middle-class women in Chennai from pursuing musical careers.

It was for this reason that it was particularly striking that Vandana and Vagu had gained control over studio space and production. My initial encounters with Vandana were brief online interactions on Facebook messenger.21 I remarked how refreshing it was to see two young women in Chennai explore studio roles beyond that of the singer.

Vandana responded “only my dad…all these are his own ideas. Vagu is a very sensible musician…I’m so glad that she is here with me for support.” As Vandana mentioned this, I was reminded of how people within my own social circles had constantly told me:

“music will not put food on the table!” I responded to her, remarking how wonderful it must be to have family support. At this point Vandana quickly typed her mobile number, mentioned she had to leave, but mysteriously added “have to talk a lot to u…” (Figure 1-

3).

21 Vandana Mazan, Facebook message with author, September 3, 2015.

Figure 1-3. Screenshot of author’s initial Facebook communication with Vandana on September 3, 2015.

Navigating Cover Performance Spaces with Vandana

It was four months after this online interaction with Vandana, when I arrived in

Chennai in spring 2016 that she revealed her story, and I began to witness the transformative potential of cover performance in her life. Between January and June

2016, Vandana’s personal and musical trajectories led me across five distinct spaces for cover performance—small-scale recording studios, live-stage concert halls, her mobile voice studio, a music reality television show, and an online live-streaming platform. As we navigated these music-making spaces, several questions emerged:

What role does cover performance play in the life of a liminal figure like Vandana? What can cover performance within multiple settings reveal about her experiences on the margins of a male-dominated industry? And how does a self-taught female musician like

Vandana make sense of these experiences within the larger context of urban life in

Chennai?

Answers to these questions emerged primarily from fieldwork conducted with

Vandana and her socio-musical participants—fellow performers, audience members, gatekeepers, and her voice students. Face-to-face and online participant-observation, interviews, filming of events, fieldnotes, and discourse from social media sites helped capture these encounters. Facebook and WhatsApp messaging, a crucial mode of communication for Vandana and her fellow participants, allowed me to be part of the scene in Chennai, and continue fieldwork long after I had left the field. Analysis of data collected from these cover performance spaces, in conjunction with interdisciplinary scholarship and theories, provided a deeper understanding of what transpired within the local cover scene.

Outline of Chapters

Within the Space of a Cover Song

What prompted my initial online interaction with Vandana was her cover of a

1980s popular Tamil film song, “Adiye Manam Nilluna” from Neengal Kettavai (1984).

To a large extent, local cover artists’ re-enactments of popular Tamil film songs represented duplications or minor interpretative versions of the original song. Unlike such re-enactments, the Mazan sisters’ high-production-value cover revealed a high level of creative sophistication; it encompasses several cover categories—metamorphic or major interpretative, send-up, and cross-gender.22 “Adiye Manam Nilluna” demonstrates that cover creativity does not conform to just one category. More importantly, the Mazan sisters’ cover also demonstrates how self-taught female

22 See footnotes 18 (Mosser) and 20 (Ware), and Lori Burns on cover categories.

musicians can use covers as a tool to resist and transform patriarchal narratives.23

Chapter 2 begins with a detailed analysis of this highly-gendered, overtly-sexual, 1980s

Tamil film song. Film songs frequently move beyond their narrative film contexts and take on a life of their own when re-enacted by fans. The second part of Chapter 2 focuses on some re-enactments of this song uploaded on YouTube. I explore how the original song, within these new performative contexts, acquires new meanings linked to notions of female respectability, caste, and class. Unlike the original song and most re- enactments, which recall or re-enforce female objectification, the Mazan sisters’ series of musical, textual, and visual alterations transform this raunchy song into a soulful

“Tribute to the Glamour Queen, Late Silk Smitha.” I argue that such metamorphic covers empower female self-taught musicians with the tools to challenge and re-shape long-standing male-centric views of women in mainstream cinema.

Small-Scale Recording Studios Spaces

Historically, recording studios have represented a male creative domain. Chapter

3 comprises a multi-vocal narrative combining the voices of Vandana, third space feminist scholars, and my own (the ethnographer) to argue how enactment of agency, access to technology, and small-scale studio settings can afford female musicians the opportunity to transcend the gendered role of singer. This chapter begins with my journey to the Mazans’ studios, wherein Vandana revealed how the sisters literally carved out their work environment. She recounted her struggle with patriarchal authority and how it prompted a series of skillful negotiations, which enabled her to gain control

23 Lori Burns, “Joanie’ Get Angry: k. d. lang’s Feminist Revisions,” in Understanding Rock: Essays in Musical Analysis, ed. John Coach and Graeme M. Boone (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 93.

over studio space and music production. The studio, however, was much more than a functional space to generate family income. For Vandana, it became a spiritual, creative, social, and collaborative space, one that would later bring her personal, professional, and economic freedom.

Live Concert Cover Performance Spaces

Access to a creative studio space promoted cover production. The covers

Vandana uploaded on social media sites brought the sisters greater visibility, which in turn facilitated networking and collaboration with like-minded, self-taught musicians and sound producers within live and studio settings. Chapter 4 moves into the realm of live performance for covers. I trace the contemporary history of women's participation within the live scene back to the 1970s, when Usha Uthup, an upper caste live singer made singing film songs in clubs more respectable for middle-class women. Within the contemporary context, this chapter focuses on the Mazan sisters’ performances within three live contexts—wedding receptions, charity fundraisers, and mall gigs. Along with the socio-economic and organizational aspects involved with live gigs, Chapter 4 also recognizes the challenges the Mazan sisters encountered, owing to their marginal musical roles and status within the live scene.

Pedagogical Spaces

Vandana’s visibility and success within live and recorded contexts attracted amateur singers who requested her to train their voices for music reality television shows. Learning to perform and produce popular Tamil film songs, like most popular music traditions, largely involves the process of repeated listening to and mimicking of the original artists' recordings. Chapter 5, based on ethnographic encounters with

Vandana and her student, Shantha, illustrates the ways in which self-taught and

amateur musicians learn popular film songs. A case study of one-on-one lessons with

Vandana and Shantha describes the processes, tools, and strategies they adopted, thus creating a pedagogical third space for Tamil film song.

Music Reality Television Show Spaces

In April 2016, Vandana’s role as a vocal instructor presented her with a chance to be featured on South India’s leading music reality television show—Airtel Super Singer.

The show has a symbiotic relationship with the Tamil film music industry: winners and promising candidates on the show make their début as mainstream playback singers.

Like thousands of contestants who flock to the competition, Vandana had previously auditioned, but never made it past preliminary rounds. In 2016, a group of contestants on the junior version of the show who called themselves Lord Labakdas invited

Vandana to train them and participate as their guest performer during the semi-final round. Although the group’s chances of winning were rather slim, Vandana accepted the opportunity to gain wider visibility as a vocal coach. Typically, scholarship on music reality shows documents rags-to-riches narratives of contestants. Chapter 6 presents an alternate perspective. Vandana’s failure and coping strategies viewed through

Goffman’s concept of “cooling out” offers an understanding of how second chances and coping strategies helped her make sense of failure to persevere in her career.

Live Streaming Spaces

Although self-taught musicians like Vandana frequently encounter failure and rejection, they employ self-fashioning techniques to re-invent themselves. Chapter 7 draws on Goffman's self-presentational strategies to depict how Vandana fashioned her online image on #fame, an online, live-streaming platform. By employing self- presentational strategies, performing film songs, and interacting with live audiences,

Vandana transformed herself into a #famestar. #fame’s online platform allowed

Vandana and her audience to co-create content, facilitating a virtual participatory musical community. Such technologically-mediated forms of communication not only enabled Vandana to fashion her image to attain online stardom, but also fostered a community alternate, yet complementary to Tamil film music culture.

Pathways to and Beyond Cover Spaces

Each of the individual chapters described above do not examine all the cover spaces equally, nor do they offer a comparison or contrast to each other. What they do demonstrate, however, is Vandana’s pathway within the cover scene and how she became an effective force. The metaphor of “pathways” in Chapter 8, the conclusion, reflects on Vandana’s personal and musical trajectories as we navigated each space. It points to possibilities or barriers that lie ahead for Vandana and female self-taught musicians within the cover scene and beyond.

No other middle-class, self-taught, female musician in Chennai had, in such a short span of time, navigated these multiple roles and spaces, nor had any of them risen in stature from an unknown figure to a cover artist with a respectable online fan following. Vandana’s personal and musical trajectory attest to the transformative potential of cover performance. Through her experiences, I demonstrate that cover performance provides a space wherein female self-taught musicians can explore multiple musical roles beyond the gendered role of playback singer. Cover spaces afford female self-taught musicians the possibilities to acquire musical and technological skill, fashion their musical identities for wider visibility, experience failure and success, and attain stardom. It is within cover spaces that self-taught female musicians like

Vandana can find a sense for belonging that is alternate, yet complementary to Tamil film music production.

Ethnographic Methods and Methodology

Multi-sited Ethnography

It was the multiple cover performance locations and the richness of the experiences within these arenas with Vandana and her socio-musical participants that made multi-sited ethnographic treatment most appropriate. Throughout my fieldwork experiences in Chennai, I lived in the heart of the city. To observe Vandana’s work as a sound producer, I commuted to her family-owned studio in the suburban areas of

Chennai—one in Velachery and the other in Vallasaravakkam. Live performances of covers typically occurred within The Music Academy, Chennai’s historic hall on T.T.K.

Road, which until recently was reserved chiefly for the promotion of traditional Carnatic music. The cover band gigs I attended were within concert halls and contemporary malls that have recently become venues for film song concerts on weekends. In April

2016, when Vandana began to pursue an individual musical career apart from her family business, she started giving voice lessons to her female students within the privacy of their homes. Because social norms of female respectability demanded that she teach her male students within public locations, she chose public parks, arguing that it would instill confidence in her students to sing in public.

Ethnographic Methods

A large part of the fieldwork for this study was conducted face-to-face from

January to June 2016 in Chennai with Vandana and her fellow socio-musical participants, who included self-taught and amateur musicians, audience members, employees, and organizers of performance events. For #fametamil’s digital online live-

streaming platform, I conducted virtual ethnography and participated as an audience member on live-streams. I also observed live stream performers within their live settings. I had opportunities to attend an orientation and a few meetings for the #fame

“talents,” which enabled me to understand the issues and experiences that performers, particularly young women, were encountering. Since I arrived back in the United States after my fieldwork in 2016, I continued to monitor performances on #fame and kept in touch with Vandana and some of the other participants I had encountered via Skype,

Facebook, and WhatsApp. As I followed Vandana’s musical trajectory, it became evident that multi-sited ethnography provided the most useful framework for this dissertation.

I wanted to capture the story—Vandana’s, mine, as well as the stories of others whom we met as we navigated these pathways. There were incidents, events, and anecdotes in Vandana’s life that I was initially hesitant to reveal, but Vandana insisted that I include everything. I repeatedly clarified, and she repeatedly assured me: “Nina, I want you to tell everything. There is nothing for me to hide. What is there to hide? I am telling the truth only.”24 I met Vandana’s father twice or thrice. Our interactions were very brief. I never met Vidya, the oldest sister. Vandana’s younger sister, Vagu, appeared to be constantly suspicious and wary of others. Although Vagu agreed to be part of this study, she carefully chose the moments she wanted to interact or reveal information. In a fit of rage after she and Vandana had an argument in my presence,

Vagu insisted, “Vandana exaggerates a lot!”25 To exclude certain interactions, or

24 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, April 23, 2016.

25 Vagu Mazan, interview with author, March 3, 2016.

anecdotes that Vandana deliberately revealed to me would amount to denying her a voice. But it must also be noted that her narratives were carefully constructed. I witnessed Vandana fashion and present ideal versions of herself to me and those she encountered within the spaces we navigated together. She constantly sought to reinvent herself. It would be remiss not to emphasize that what Vandana chose to reveal was her version of the story.

I wanted to evoke and communicate the excitement of these experiences. I wanted the field to come alive. I wanted to allow the voices of individuals to speak for themselves. For this reason, I combine excerpts of conversations and quotations from interviews, Facebook posts, WhatsApp messages, and #fame live-streams. Such an approach aligns with what Clifford Geertz calls “thick description,” which aim to provide a complex contextualization of cultural artifacts situated within their “webs of significance.”26 As Emerson, Shaw, and Fretz point out, these impressions are by no means an “excerpt strategy” from my fieldnotes;27 they are intended to bridge the gap between various sources of data collected;28 they are also intended to mark a distinction between descriptive and analytic writing. Similar to Jeff Todd Titon’s multi-voiced

26 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 5.

27 Robert M Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda L. Shaw. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2011), 20.

28 Fieldnotes, recordings of events, photographs, telephone conversations, Facebook and WhatsApp messages and voice notes. Since much of Tamil film music—and even more so, covers—draws on many western music elements, I include musical transcriptions in western staff and Carnatic notation wherever appropriate.

narrative of conversations filled with thick description in Powerhouse for God,29 I evoke scenes from my fieldwork to re-tell the story.

Interviews were conducted in a mixture of Tamil and English. In instances when

Tamil was spoken, I provide a translation for the reader. Informants would frequently start speaking in English, slip into Tamil, and pepper in Tan-glish,30 as local Chennaites are typically accustomed to code switching. I preserve the idiosyncrasies of language or grammatical structures to privilege the speaker’s voice and the local flavor of speaking among Indian English and Tamil-speaking middle-class youth in Chennai.

My interpretation of the dialogue in these contexts is intended to provide deeper insights into the points of contact, tensions, character, and emotions of the people involved. They are intended to recreate and capture, the richness of the experience and evoke a deeper understanding of what occurred within a specific space or a given time.

Such moments reinforce that this research was based on real people who are part of

Chennai’s cover scene. The voices of people within the scene combine with my voice and the voices of scholars from interdisciplinary fields to create a multi-vocal narrative.

While I include my interpretation to guide key moments, I also invite the reader to engage and participate fully with the text to allow the possibilities for multiple meanings

—in this sense, the text is performative.

Through my fieldwork experiences, I gained much more than a research topic and a network within Chennai’s emerging cover scene. As an ethnographer, I was

29 Jeff Todd Titon, Powerhouse for God: Speech, Chant, and Song in an Appalachian Baptist Church (University of Tennessee Press, 2018).

30 Tan-glish is a portmanteau word for Tamil + English.

concerned about not giving back to my informants and the community. I offered

Vandana and her sister free western music theory and voice lessons. When Vandana wanted to apply for a job as a radio jockey at the Tamil FM film song station, I helped her construct her resume and assisted her with writing content whenever she required a brief biography in English for concerts and gigs. Whenever possible I served as a photographer and shared my audio-video footage with my informants. On one occasion a film music director I had observed within the studio requested some of the photos I had taken for a press interview. Vandana and her sister used my “U.S.A.” status to procure a gig performance opportunity; it was their very first live performance of English songs, so they also invited me to perform with them. I used my contacts within the industry to connect local talent with live gigs and film music opportunities. In this manner, over time, I found ways to use my role and become useful to the musicians and their networks within the cover scene.

Vandana and I became very good friends; she constantly confided in me about her personal and professional life. I encouraged and supported her in many of her endeavors. Although we are just a few years apart in age, she half-jokingly teased:

“Nina, you’re like my mother. You like and support everything I do.” We spent hours at local coffee shops, where we talked about music and her life. On her birthday, we spent the day together; we explored a new mall, we visited her favorite temple, and she showed me around her high school, one of her formative musical influences.

Ethnographic encounters, creating music together, and having meaningful conversations, alongside laughter and tears all led to a deeper friendship. We continue to keep in touch on WhatsApp.

The Individual in Ethnomusicology

My work grew out of a commitment to women’s agency, their changing roles in music, and their music production. Like Jane Bower:

I am continually concerned with women’s agency in music—especially with their music making in heavily male-dominated fields… I am more interested in history than theory, and in women’s roles and position in society and the influence of those on their music-making, than in feminist criticism. My scholarship is very woman-centered.31

In focusing on Vandana—the individual—I attempted not only to “reconcile the particulars of fieldwork with cultural generalization,”32 but also to deal with ethnomusicological and anthropological concerns about “individual autonomy and free agency.”33 Ethnomusicologists who focus on individuals rather than a collective community argue that individuals are not simply molded by culture or society; they act as agents in the formation of musical cultures or are responsible for either maintaining or challenging tradition. Benjamin Brinner observes that musicians’ “motivations and ability in response to community options and demands” frequently differ.34 For Vandana, there was always an urge within her “to try something new,” “to keep doing something creative all the time,” and “to be different.”35 She constantly sought to reinvent herself to become famous: “You know, Nina, you have to look different. You have to be different,

31 Ellen Koskoff, “Foreword” cites Jane Bowers in Music and Gender, ed., Pirkko Moisala and Beverley Diamond. (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2000),6.

32 Jesse D. Ruskin and Timothy Rice, “The Individual in Musical Ethnography,” Ethnomusicology 56 (2) 2012: 318.

33 Ibid.

34 Benjamin Brinner, Knowing Music, Making Music: Javanese Gamelan and the Theory of Musical Competence and Interaction, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1995), 31.

35 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, January 18, February 25, and March 27, 2016.

to get noticed,”36 she once said to me. In her quest to gain recognition and stardom within the cover scene, the paths she pursued or rejected, the decisions she made or ignored, all point to different formulations of agency enacted. Her chosen trajectories collectively reveal the musical and social continuum of her individual lived-experience within the cover scene.

With Vandana as the focal point, my approach has been to study the cover scene as a space that has opened opportunities for middle-class women to explore multiple musical roles. Vandana’s lived experiences demonstrate the transformative potential that cover performance afforded her. Within these cover spaces Vandana became an effective force unlike any within cover circles. She became a star and amassed a fan following in her own way. In this bottom-up approach, cover spaces are dynamic socio- musical arenas that have the potential to produce a new generation of female musicians. No other female self-taught musician had successfully navigated so many different cover spaces and roles in such a short span of time. It was Vandana who guided me through these different spaces and helped uncover Chennai’s vibrant Tamil film cover scene. It was the richness of these experiences with her that made it essential to privilege her personal engagements with these cover performance spaces over those of other musicians. Without her individual experiences and acts of agency, this ethnography would have focused solely on cover performance within the studio and

Chennai’s vibrant cover culture would probably have eluded me.

36 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, January 18, 2016.

History of Women’s Roles and Self-fashioning in Indian Film Music Production

The following section draws on existing scholarship on women’s roles and self- fashioning within Indian film music production. Much of this scholarship has focused on the importance of female respectability and self-fashioning in attaining stardom.37

Stephen Greenblatt describes “self-fashioning,” as “the achievement of… a distinctive personality, a characteristic address to the world, a consistent mode of perceiving and behaving.”38 He emphasizes that in the process of self-fashioning, cultural works can never be separated from their “systems of public signification.”39 This background and evolution of female singers within the film industry is essential to understand the significance of Vandana’s personal and musical trajectory on the margins of mainstream film music production, within the cover scene as well as the larger context of Chennai’s city life.

Traditional Gendered Role of Female Playback Singers in Mainstream Cinema

Akin to European and American contexts, studios in India have historically represented a male bastion for control and creativity. Women’s musical roles within these domains have typically been confined to that of a lead or back-up singer.40

Feminist scholar Lucy Green offers insights into why women have either been excluded

37 Neepa Majumdar, Wanted Cultured Ladies Only!: Female Stardom and Cinema in India, 1930s–1950s (Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2009) and Amanda Weidman, Singing the Classical, Voicing the Modern: The Postcolonial Politics of Music in South India (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006).

38 Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1980), 2.

39 Ibid., 9.

40 Marion Leonard Gender in the Music Industry: Rock, Discourse and Girl Power (Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company 2007), 91.

or have abstained from technology. Historically, men and masculinity have been associated with the mind and technology, while women and femininity are linked to the female body and sexuality.41 Within the context of the studio, the “natural” artistry of the female voice poses a threat to men who rely on technology for their creativity. To maintain social order, a woman’s voice is treated as an object, made audible only through male creativity and technological manipulation. The preponderance of women conforming to the traditional female role of vocalist over any other musical role, then, only serves to maintain the status quo and affirm patriarchal ideologies.42 Masculinity is normative in music and music production; women are made visible or highlighted only in terms of their sexuality, as objects of the male gaze. Furthermore, Sheryl Garratt, Paul

Théberge, and Keir Keightley argue that women’s abstinence or minimal use of studio technology is reinforced by the male-centric language that recording technology manufacturers employ for instruction manuals and error display messages.43

Over the last decade, an inter-disciplinary body of scholarship on mainstream

Indian film music has focused on the primacy of the female voice, self-fashioning, and stardom.44 These scholars situate their work within the colonial discourse that deals with social reforms and technological innovations to highlight how early female playback singers navigated public space, occasionally circumventing tradition to fashion their voices and public careers. Amanda Weidman argues that during the 1940s and 1950s,

41 Lucy Green Music, Gender, Education, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 124.

43 Marion Leonard, Gender in the Music Industry, 51.

44 Neepa Majumdar, “The Embodied Voice: Song Sequences and Stardom in Popular Hindi Cinema” in Soundtrack Available: Essays on Film and Popular Music, ed., Pamela Robertson Wojcik and Arthur Knight, (Durham: Duke University Press. 2001), 161-184. Also, Weidman 2006, 2014; and Indraganti 2016.

middle-class female singers in India were doing something remarkable by stepping outside their domestic roles to navigate professional careers in a public, male- dominated space.45 Unlike the film actresses whose glamorous onscreen roles drew attention to their bodies, female playback singers took advantage of this new opportunity to circumvent social expectations, yet maintain norms of female respectability and fashion their voices to gain stardom.46 These early singers molded their voices into two distinct categories–-that of the “ideal” Indian woman and that of the vamp.47

The quality of their voices and the “moral and emotional traits” attached to them has, until recently, dominated Indian cinema.48 In comparison, male playback singers’ voices have not been subjected to these rigid dichotomies. Among the handful of popular female singers of this era was Hindi cinema’s most popular playback singer,

Lata Mangeshkar. When Mangeshkar navigated public spaces, she conformed to socially-acceptable norms of female behavior in her modest, demure comportment.

Furthermore, in her professional career as a playback singer for Hindi cinema,

Mangeshkar carefully selected roles that aligned with that of the “ideal” Indian woman, rather than that of the “fallen” woman. These methods of self-fashioning not only

45 Amanda Weidman, Singing the Classical, Voicing the Modern: The Postcolonial Politics of Music in South India. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006).

46 Majumdar, 2009; Weidman, 2006.

47 Ideologies linked to vocal qualities and images of the “loose” woman performing within public spaces are closely linked to caste and class that are traced back to courtesan culture during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries of the colonial period. At the turn of the twentieth century, when Indian society perceived this public performing profession as immoral, Indian cinema recruited women from this community into the film industry to “reform” them. At the time, playback singers at the time distanced themselves from the “disrepute” of these female singers and dancers.

48 Neepa Majumdar, “The Embodied Voice,” 189.

conferred on her exceptional aural stardom, but also enabled her to hold a “voice monopoly” that lasted four decades in Hindi cinema.49 Through similar strategies of vocal and public self-fashioning, female playback singers in South India’s regional cinemas also gained iconic status. In March 2016, P. Susheela, one of South India’s leading Tamil film playback singers, entered the Guinness Book of World Records and the Asia Book of Records for her prolific contribution of 17,695 songs in 12 Indian languages over the course of five decades.50 The legendary careers of these pioneering women in mainstream Tamil cinema have served as models for generations of aspiring female singers in Chennai. Their iconic status has made playback singing an attractive female profession.

Evolving Musical Identity of Contemporary Playback Singers

Just as how early playback technology enabled middle-class women to explore the new profession of playback singing, neo-liberalism has provided contemporary female playback singers with numerous opportunities to fashion not only their voices, but also their public personas. As neo-liberalism led to the decentralization of the film music industry, it simultaneously intensified the relationship between film music and television. Privatized cable television networks increased access to film screening and film related content.51 If early female playback singers navigated the recording industry to attain aural stardom, now contemporary playback singers had a new range of

49 Neepa Majumdar, “The Embodied Voice,” 189.

50 Naug, Udhav. “P. Susheela enters Guinness World Records.” The Hindu, March 29, 2016. http://www. thehindu.com/entertainment/veteran-playback-singer-p-susheela-recognised-by-guinness-and-asia-book- of-records/article8409692.ece (accessed June 16, 2017).

51 Jayson Beaster-Jones and Natalie Sarrazin, ed., Music in Contemporary Indian Film: Memory, Voice, Identity. (New York: Routledge, 2017).

platforms—talk shows, award ceremonies, top-of-the-charts rankings, call-in shows, and music reality television shows—to fashion their voices and public images to attain aural and visual stardom.

Unlike their predecessors, contemporary female playback singers have fewer restrictions. They are not forced to conform to modes of demure comportment, restrained singing, and traditional forms of clothing and hairstyles. However, they are dependent on their accessibility within the industry, both professionally and socially.

Film music directors (primarily male) expect these young women to socialize with them within the studio, in pubs, and in cafes. In contrast to their predecessors, several of these young female singers wear western clothing and mold their public personas based on what they observe online and on television shows.

Commenting on her vocal and public performance, a successful young singer named Chinmayi confesses, “I’m still experimenting with how to present myself on stage. We have no models of women who move around and sing, and no training in it.”52 Contemporary singers do not aim to deliver the same vocal consistency as their predecessors; eclecticism is the new marker of authenticity. Chinmayi proudly comments, “all my songs sound different—you wouldn’t know it was the same singer in all of them.”53 During the early 2000s, several female playback singers (many of whom took western vocal lessons from me in Chennai) sought out voice instructors from diverse local and foreign traditions. They pursued opportunities to gain versatility and

52 Amanda Weidman “Neoliberal Logics of Voice: playback Singing and Public Femaleness in South India: playback Singing and Public Femaleness in South India,” Culture, Theory and Critique 55, no 2 (2014): 175-193.

53 Ibid.

sing in contrasting idioms, which were highly-valued by film music directors during a recording session. Singers who were able to display eclecticism were deemed more marketable than singers who had achieved proficiency in only a single vocal tradition.

With the expansion of the field of playback singing, there is no dearth of talent in Tamil cinema today. Weidman observes “it is extremely common now—almost required, in fact—for playback singers to produce independent albums or be part of a band...there is less work for any single person.”54 In such a highly-competitive environment, it is not uncommon for the younger generation of professional female playback singers in

Chennai to re-fashion their images and find novel ways to maintain their visibility and connection with fans.

Self-taught Musicians’ Pathways into Film Music Production through Cover Performance

If neoliberal regimes created opportunities for mainstream contemporary female playback singers, enabling them to fashion their voices and musical identities, they have also created the perception of easy access, by ordinary individuals, to stardom in mainstream production, through cover performance. Earlier in the chapter, I described how self-taught musicians and producers (predominantly young men) with access to small-scale and home recording studios, have acquired musical and technical expertise through cover production, and have gained access into mainstream popular music production.

54 Amanda Weidman, “Neoliberal Logics of Voice,” 173-193.

Beyond the possibilities of small-scale and home recording studios, in the last decade music reality television shows have provided amateur and self-taught singers with a platform to gain skill and wider visibility. Over the course of one television season, participants are groomed by mainstream film musicians who adjudicate the show. At the end of the season, some of the more popular shows launch their winners and successful participants’ careers in the film music industry. Nikhil Mathew, winner of

Season 1 (2006) on Airtel Super Singer (South India’s popular music reality television show), made his début in Tamil cinema with “Enadhuyire” from Bheemaa (2008). Since

Nikhil’s access into mainstream production, each season’s winners and promising candidates have fulfilled their lifelong ambitions of becoming playback singers. It is a dynamic which invigorates and sustains the contemporary cover scene and mainstream film music production in Chennai. Neoliberal regimes have fostered a vibrant cover culture. Like the genre of covers, “neoliberal regimes do not reject, but rather re- purpose prior understandings of the world.”55

Female Self-fashioning, Female Respectability, and Social Mobility within the Cover Scene

In the sections above, I described the ways in which popular film playback singers have engaged with self-fashioning techniques to attain popularity and stardom.

Contemporary media scholars observe that “we see the process of celebrification trickling down to blog writers social network site participants, YouTube stars, and other

55 Amanda Weidman “Neoliberal Logics of Voice,” 175-193.

social media users.”56 Self-presentation and image-maintenance practices are equally accessible to popular icons and ordinary individuals. In the following section, I describe some of the ways in which Vandana engaged in self-fashioning techniques to gain entry and navigate the cover scene.

In Chennai, whenever people view a young woman’s increased autonomy and confidence in a public space, it is female respectability that is at the center of their conversation. Vandana lamented that her father often received complaints from neighbors that his daughters were allowing men into the studio late in the evening and ruining the reputation of their neighborhood. Such judgments on how women should appear, speak, dress, sing, or conduct their profession in public affect their respectability. Any deviance from the norm is interpreted in terms of women’s sexuality.

It is important to note that men and women from different social classes may hold conflicting views on appropriate forms of behavior. Gender, age, and class are frequently crucial to understanding how singing styles in Chennai embody the local understanding of morality and female respectability. Although Vandana experienced these forms of moral judgments in her profession, she was not free from the bias herself. At a live performance she critiqued the inappropriate suggestiveness of a female singer’s style of dress, behavior, and the way in which she pronounced a highly- sexualized musical genre, “kuttu,”57 to excite the young men in the audience. While restraint is highly valued among middle-class female musicians, the above instances

56 Alice Marwick and danah boyd, “To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter Convergence” The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 17 no.2 (2011): 139-158.

57 Kuttu, is a folk music style that Tamil film music has indexically linked with suggestive, sexual carnal pleasure. The female singer pronounced the word ‘kuttu,’ as ‘kutu’ to ‘poke’ or ‘penetrate,’ which reinforced the highly suggestive nature of the genre.

demonstrate how spaces for cover performance serve as a platform for contemporary self-taught women to conform to or reject normative practices, or even subvert them and gain freedom to express themselves.

Closely linked to self-fashioning is the concept of social mobility. Vandana and her siblings are children from an inter-caste marriage. Her mother was an upper caste

Palagad brahmin, and her father is from the sanar or nadar caste, considered to be a lower caste.58 In contemporary Chennai, caste segregation based on notions of purity is not as rigidly observed as it often is in some villages and smaller towns in Tamil Nadu.

However, there are certain vicinities within Chennai, like Mylapore and T. Nagar, that have historically been associated with the brahmin community and its traditional, cultural values. When Vandana’s parents moved to Chennai in the 1980s, it was in

Mylapore that the family resided. The three girls were inculcated with predominantly upper caste brahmin values, both at home and at the school they attended.

Within this conservative vicinity, the family built a home studio in their apartment.

Vandana told me that as clients began to frequent their studio, conservative neighbors objected to their profession as popular musicians; they complained it was ruining the respectability and reputation of the locality. The family made the decision to relocate to

58 The Indian caste system is a complex social structure, wherein social roles such as one’s profession were traditionally determined by birth or heredity. Caste, in India has had a long, dark history of discrimination based on notions linked to ethnic purity. Historically, caste categories were fixed, and social mobility, in many ways, was restricted. Among the different categories of castes and sub-castes, the Brahmins or the priestly caste, are traditionally considered the upper caste, the intellectuals. A Palagad brahmins refers to a specific ethnic group of brahmins who originate from the town of Pallakad – on the border between the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Culturally, they have acquired a mixture of both Tamil and Malyalee brahmin values. The nadar or sanar caste, a lower caste in the hierarchy, is associated with merchants or businessman. Typically, in inter-caste marriages such as that of Vandana’s parents, the husband retains his lower caste status and the children take on the same caste. While caste- based discrimination is technically illegal, notions of caste are still culturally-ingrained, more so in smaller villages and towns from where Vandana’s parents hailed, than in bigger cities like Chennai.

Valasaravakkam—a suburban area located closer to where the centralized film industry was once situated. When people move, they often reinvent themselves and assume new personas. To avoid further problems or hinder business because of their caste identity, they decided to change their family name, “Masanam”59 to Mazan. The Mazan girls identified more with their mother’s brahmin traditions because of its privileged social status. Within her professional life, I witnessed Vandana introduce herself and construct her sense of self as a brahmin. The only time Vandana referenced her father’s heritage was in her attempt to convince Vagu of her decision to accept a project, “I have nadar60 blood, I know how to make money, and I won’t get cheated,” she said proudly.61

It is essential to note that perceptions of caste, and its associations with purity and privilege, can subtly exert an influence on one’s opportunities. As described above, such realizations compelled Vandana and her family to fashion their identities in a manner that would likely be beneficial.

Within the context of the cover scene, self-fashioning for young women like

Vandana involves constructing a sense of self to gain membership into these newer, less rigid social formations. However, perceptions of caste and class, as well as notions of female respectability, subtly influence one’s chances of gaining acceptance into social groups and performance contexts.

59 Tamil names indicated caste identity. “Masanam”, Vandana’s grandfather’s name (on their father’s side), indicates their “lower-caste” status.

60 The nadar community is typically regarded as an industrious community, known for their shrewd business acumen.

61Author’s fieldnotes, February 18, 2016.

Concepts

Space and Pathways

Focusing on Vandana and her lived experiences as a self-taught female musician within the cover scene enabled me to shape my methodology. The richness of the experiences made multi-sited ethnographic treatment around the concepts of space and pathways an appropriate framework. Traditional Tamil understandings of space

(iṭam) and pathways (vaḻi) are highly gendered and culturally-embedded; public arenas are ascribed as a male domain, and women are relegated to the domestic space.

As metaphors, the concepts of spaces and pathways served to chart the movements, points of contact, tensions, and exchanges between Vandana and members of the cover scene. These concepts enabled me to assess the types of negotiations within and across each location; they facilitated an understanding of how

Vandana embraced or contested the cultural politics within each cover performance space. The benefit of observing each setting with Vandana was that it allowed me to experience how she dealt with her projects in the contexts of her personal and social challenges. The complex or direct routes she took toward or away from a certain space emphasizes the factors and choices that shaped her trajectory, her decisions, and her actions over time. Given the fact that she chose to engage with multiple spaces and pathways, it was important to understand why she chose to enter and leave some of them.

While “cover spaces” refers to the actual, physical locations for cover performance (live, recorded, and online) in Chapters 3 to 7, the term also has manifold significance within this ethnography. In Chapter 2, it refers to the time-space duration of a cover song and its transformative potential—in this case, to challenge and alter

stereotypical images of women in Tamil cinema’s musical canon. “Cover spaces” refers to those interstitial “third spaces” where self-taught musicians can learn, acquire skill, and create their own musical practices to become professional musicians. Over the last decade, self-taught musicians’ professional engagements with cover performance and their associated venues have become so pervasive that they dismantle the notion of cover performance as a mere hobbyist endeavor. “Cover spaces” acknowledges the voices, work, and lived experiences of those unknown musicians who use cover performance to find a sense of belonging to film music production. And finally, by placing the voices of cover artists within the spaces they inhabit, this ethnography claims a space within scholarship on popular Indian music for Chennai’s cover artists.

Mainstream

In this introductory chapter and throughout this ethnography, I have made references to the term “mainstream.” Within a variety of contexts, this term has acquired a range of nebulous meanings which further complicate or prove inadequate for our purposes. In this ethnography, I draw on the local definition of the term used by self- taught musicians. To them, the mainstream is anything that has mass appeal with the

“common man.” When one enters the mainstream, one experiences fame and a range of new opportunities. While fame can, in theory, be achieved through any musical means, in practice, at the time of this ethnography, amateur and self-taught musicians typically achieve it through breaking into Tamil film music production or by winning a music reality television show.

This begs the question: what is the relationship between mainstream and cover culture? Alison Huber observes in Dick Hebidge’s conception of the term “mainstream”

sub-cultures define themselves in opposition.62 In contrast, musicians within Tamil film song cover culture tend to nurture an ardent desire to break into the mainstream; they draw on mainstream music and musical icons as sources of inspiration. As noted previously, the mainstream also benefits from cover culture in that it provides a steady flow of fresh talent and ideas in the aspirants who manage to break through. The cover scene provides many of the necessary pre-requisites for breaking into the mainstream.

It provides the training wheels for acquiring professional skills, and it provides cover artists numerous opportunities to increase their visibility. Greater visibility within the cover scene increases a self-taught musician’s chances of breaking into the mainstream. Vandana is a prime example of someone who is following the path of increasing her visibility within the cover scene, intending to eventually break into the mainstream. It is the shared interest and inter-dependence which creates a symbiotic relationship between mainstream and cover culture. Cover culture and the mainstream are not mutually exclusive; they occasionally intersect, as in the aforementioned case of music reality television shows, where contestants become household names and enter the mainstream through cover performance.

Cover Scene

Chennai’s cover scene forges pathways for a steady stream of talent to flow from such sites of cover performance into mainstream film music production. The cover scene was at its pinnacle in 2016 while I conducted fieldwork. Like mainstream

62 Alison Huber, “Mainsteram as Metaphor: Imagining Dominant Culture” in Redefining Mainstream Popular Music ed., Sarah Baker, Andy Bennett and Jodie Taylor. (New York: Routledge, 2013), 3-13.

production, it reflected a highly competitive environment. In addition to cover artists vying to become successful in Tamil cinema, it must be noted that mainstream playback singers also seek out collaborative opportunities to perform covers with self-taught musicians to maintain their visibility with fans. While local musicians participate actively in cover performance, they do not perceive the individual sites and practices collectively as a “cover scene.” I draw on Will Straw’s concept of “scene” as “all the places and activities which surround and nourish a particular cultural preference,”63 which provides an appropriate framework to understand how live, recorded, and virtual spaces for re- enactments collectively form a cover scene for Tamil film music. Although I do not use

Mark Slobin’s term “affinity group,”64 this term captures the notion of scene as a community centered on a specific musical genre and socio-musical formation comprising performers, fans, audiences, and gatekeepers. Just as a scene is centered on a genre and socio-musical formations, they also include shared values and practices, which “create the grooves to which practices and affinities become fixed.”65

Toby Miller argues, “the virtue of scenes is that they offer laboratories of cultural citizenship…” These cover performance “laboratories” provide an alternative space to mainstream production that female self-taught musicians like Vandana fashion their musical identities, explore stardom, and find “cultural citizenship” or a sense of belonging that is alternate, yet complementary to mainstream film music production.

63 Will Straw, “Scene and Sensibilities,” Public, 23 (2001): 245–257.

64 Martin Slobin, Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West (New Hampshire: Hanover 1993)

65 Will Straw, “Scene and Sensibilities,” 245-57.

Contribution of this Ethnographic Study

This ethnography is the first to uncover a vibrant cover culture for popular Tamil film song in Chennai, South India. It highlights Tamil film song cover culture at what will most likely be its most lucrative and industrious period in Chennai. Each chapter draws inspiration from, and contributes to, a growing body of literature on popular Indian film music, cover performance, ethnographic methods, women’s studies, and star studies.

My work provides the first scholarly musical, textual and visual analysis of a popular

Tamil film song. It also demonstrates the transformative potential that metamorphic covers offer self-taught female musicians to alter long-standing, negative, male-centric views of women in cinema (Chapter 2). The Mazan sisters were the only two women whom I encountered in Chennai that had both built their own recording studios and gained control over sound production. Their enactments of agency, which shaped their musical pathways, attest to women’s changing roles in popular music production in the city (Chapter 3). This study also offers a glimpse into some of the socio-musical formations, roles, hierarchies, as well as organizational aspects within the contemporary cover scene (Chapter 4). If learning popular Tamil film songs was largely a self- regulated process, this ethnography provides models to understand the ways in which amateur and self-taught musicians learn popular Tamil film songs. A case study of

Vandana’s role as vocal instructor, provides insight into the creation of a “third space pedagogy” for popular Tamil film songs (Chapter 5). This ethnography provides the first scholarly work on Tamil film music-based reality television shows. While most studies of music reality shows in global contexts focus on the narratives of successful contestants, my work offers an alternate perspective—how Vandana dealt with failure twice on the show and refashioned her image to persevere with her career as a musician (Chapter

6). This study captures a recent, but short-lived live-streaming platform, #fame, which enabled ordinary individuals like Vandana to fashion their online images and gain a fan following and online stardom within the cover scene (Chapter 7).

Existing scholarship on Indian popular film music typically focuses on women’s roles and the iconic star status of female singers in the film industry; it draws primarily on historical and socio-political sources. This ethnography, based on face-to-face, virtual, and digital media encounters, focuses on Vandana’s rise in stature from an unknown figure to a cover artist with a respectable online fan following. As one of the few works in ethnomusicological scholarship that deals with an individual female musician, Vandana’s experiences reveal insights into a much wider socio-musical culture. Attention to cover performance provides insights into changing female roles, the ways in which women experience music and make sense of their world within the cover scene, and the larger realm of Chennai’s urban life.

Scholarship on covers and cover performance within global contexts typically focuses on detailed analysis of individual songs; it frequently explores re-enactments of popular songs within individual contexts of recorded and live settings. This ethnography provides an overarching framework to view all these individual contexts as a “cover scene;” it provides a model for future studies on cover performance within global contexts, and a model for understanding cover performance as a tool to challenge and re-shape long-standing, male-centric views within global contexts.

CHAPTER 2 WITHIN THE SPACE OF A COVER SONG: FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIANS TRANSFORMING THE CANON

Stumbling Upon a Cover of ‘Adiye Manam Nilluna’

Live and recorded re-enactments of Tamil film songs are a quintessential element of Chennai’s contemporary local popular cover scene. Since the early-mid

2000s, cover songs have grown and expanded to include stage renditions by original playback singers and music reality contestants, exact reduplications sung to a karaoke track by amateur singers, and interpretive re-imaginings by self-taught musicians. In fall

2015, a few months before I was to embark on fieldwork in Chennai, I began studying covers uploaded on YouTube by Chennai’s contemporary, small-scale studio and home studio musicians. My journal entry from that fall morning describes what led me to explore women’s changing musical roles within popular music production in Chennai, a quest that would eventually lead me to Vandana Mazan and the cover scene:

September 3, 2015

I am sitting at my laptop in my apartment in Gainesville, Florida watching YouTube covers of film songs made by small-scale and home recording studio owners in Chennai. Many of these artists have expressed interest to collaborate, and a handful have given me permission to conduct research with them in their studio settings in the spring. As I continue surveying their work, I realize these studio owners and musicians are alll young men! Are women still confined to the gendered role of singer? Are there no female home studio owners and sound producers? I quickly message one of my potential leads on Facebook to enquire if he knows any women who produce music within their own studios. He responds instantly with a link to a Facebook profile, “This girl Vandana. I don’t know her that well though. Just hi bye types.” (Figure 2-1):

Figure 2-1. Screenshot of author’s Facebook communication with male home studio lead in Chennai September 3, 2015.

“Just hi bye types” I chuckle to myself. I quickly add Vandana as a friend on Facebook and write her a private message to introduce myself. I study her online profile; there are photos of a recording studio, more professional photos of some of her live performance with a band, and there are two Tamil film cover songs she produced with her younger sister, Vagu. The first cover, a tribute to A.R. Rahman’s “New York Nagaram” from the 2006 film Sillunu Oru Kaadhal (A Chilling Love) was produced under pseudonyms. Vandana adopted the moniker “Vasudha Theevra.”1 Vagu’s appeared to be an anagram of her name with a “y” affixed at the beginning to read “Yugav”2 (Figure 2-2).

1 “Vasudha” in Sanskrit is a reference to the earth element. “Theevra” is a reference to the Hindu goddess, Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge and performing arts, which conjures notions of strength, intensity, and a sense of all that is pervading and extreme.

2 “Yugav,” a popular Hindu male name with Sanskrit origins, means one who is aggressive to find success.

Figure 2-2. Screenshot of Mazan sisters’ first YouTube cover of A.R. Rahman’s “New York Nagaram” produced under pseudonyms “Vasudha Theevra” and “Yugav.”

The second cover “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di,” a 1984 song-and- dance sequence from the film Neengal Kettavai (Listner’s Choice) was produced under their original names (Figure 2-3).

Figure 2-3. Screenshot of Vandana and Vagu’s second cover “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di,” produced under their original names.

Their choice of song for their second cover was even more intriguing. Traditional notions of female modesty and respectability, how women should, act, speak, sing, and dress in public are still culturally engrained. Why would two young middle-class women choose to cover a highly gendered film song intended chiefly to gratify a largley male audiences’ sexual fantasies? This is fantastic! I have discovered two young women in their late 20s who produce music within their own studio setting. But why was the first cover produced under pseudonyms?

I would only learn the answer as to why the sisters used pseudonyms for their first cover during my first face-to-face encounter with Vandana within the studio

(Chapter 3). The present chapter focuses on their second cover, an interpretative version of the 1984 film song “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di,” from Neengal

Kettavai, produced under their original names. First, I provide the mixed-reception I gleaned from interviews with contemporary fans of the song. Then, I offer an analysis of the original film song, highlighting its highly gendered musical, textual, and visual elements. Film songs frequently move beyond their narrative contexts; they take on a social life of their own and acquire new meanings. This second part of this chapter discusses some contemporary renditions of “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di” uploaded on YouTube. Many of these renditions either reinforce objectified images of women from the original filmic context or call to mind traditional patriarchal norms of female sexuality and respectability linked to notions of class and caste. Finally, this chapter examines the Mazan sisters’ cover. Unlike other highly gendered isomorphic renditions on YouTube, the Mazan sisters’ cover is a metamorphic (interpretative), send-up, cross-gender rendition.3 By highlighting some of the innovative sonic and visual transformations, this chapter argues that interpretative or metamorphic covers

3 See footnotes for Ware and Mosser’s taxonomy or category of covers in Chapter 1.

provide opportunities for self-taught cover artists like Vandana and Vagu to reshape the politics of the male gaze and female sexuality in Tamil cinema.

During my own childhood in India, I recall listening to and watching “Adiye

Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di,” re-mediated via radio and television broadcasts. At the time, like most children my age, I never paid much attention to the lyrics. Revisiting the song after more than twenty years, I was curious to have a male perspective. Shyam

Benjamin, a musical acquaintance and a self-taught musician who recently made his debut as a film composer for Tamil cinema offered some insights:

“Adiye Manam Nilluna” is a super big hit. Musically too, I like the chords and the way the singers have sung it. It is played at every function, especially weddings. She (the female actor) is the cherry (the icing on the cake). It’s kinda sexy lyrics, not bad and all…it’s just teasing and stuff. Obviously, we have to sing about this stuff for the first night, na?! So, it suits the wedding situation. Otherwise, it is a good dance number. It is super fun, in fact comical. When teasing is what you have to convey, the tune has it by itself.4

Shyam’s comment indicates that “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di” has become a staple at wedding receptions. His reference to “first night” (muthal iravu), when the bridal couple consummates their first union, suggests that the song’s function at the wedding reception is not merely to entertain guests, but also to titillate the imagination of the bridal couple.

Like Shyam, youth in Chennai expressed similar sentiments. Intrigued by these responses, I probed Shyam further: “Can you listen to the song, paying more attention to the lyrics and their meaning?” Shyam proceeded to watch the song on YouTube along with a copy of lyrics. After the song ended, he exclaimed:

4 Shyam Benjamin, interview with author, January 28, 2017.

Ha! That was interesting. I NEVER decoded that song like this before… There is double meaning. FULL ON DIRTY! See, I think that word ‘Adiye,’ is the main thing…it’s catchy. After that, nobody really listens to the lyrics. It’s all creative and random. Just like improvisation, like we do in jazz, free flowing. You see, Valli is the lyric writer of this song. He is AMAZING; he can just write anything and bring brilliance out of it, make it work rhythmically even with double meanings. He would have just done [composed] it in five minutes I’m sure. I’m sorry I missed out on working with him.5

Similarly, in my attempt to understand the Mazan sisters’ motives for their unique choice of a recorded cover, I probed:

Author: Do you perform ‘Adiye’ at weddings?

Vandana: No. It’s a peppy song... At wedding gigs, we mostly try to sing slow songs to avoid the crowd going crazy and disturb us. They will behave idiotic. All these youngsters. Guys, particularly, will drink and spoil the event.

Author: What made you choose this song for a cover?

Vagu: Simply. I don’t know. I like the song.

Vandana: The lyrics are really bad, [laughs] but I’m a fan of Ilaiyaraaja’s music. I’m also a very big fan of Silk Smitha.6

Unlike most cover artists who pay homage to the original musicians, the Mazan

Duo7 dedicated their cover to actress Silk Smitha, the 1980s siren of Tamil cinema featured in the song. The Mazan sisters’ cover title reads “Aidye Manam Cover Version” with a subtitle “Think Silk.” Within the space for publication information on YouTube is an additional title: “A Tribute to the Glamour Queen, Late Silk Smitha” (Figure 2-3).

5 Shyam Benjamin, interview with author, January 28, 2017.

6 Vandana and Vagu Mazan, interview with author, January 28, 2016.

7 The Mazan Duo was the band name Vandana chose for her collaboration with her younger sister, Vagu.

Relatively little is known or written about female actor Silk Smitha in English scholarship or journalism. Born in 1960 in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, sheer poverty forced Vijayalakshmi, her given name, to drop out of school and seek her fortune as a make-up artist in the film industry. In 1980, Vijayalakshmi made her debut as a local bar girl named “Silk” in the Tamil film Vandi Chakkaram (The Wheel). This role brought Vijayalakshmi instant success and stardom; it established her trademark and career in Tamil cinema. Vijayalakshmi adopted the screen name “Silk Smitha.”

Over the next decade, it was Silk Smitha’s willingness to appear in skimpy clothes, display her voluptuous figure, perform suggestive dances—particularly within scenes depicting illicit landscapes such as bars, bedrooms, or gangster’s dens—that enabled her to feature in over 500 films as the “erotic actress”8 (Figure 2-4).

Figure 2-4. Silk Smith in the role of the vamp in ‘Nethu Rathiri Yamma’ from Sakalakala Vallavan (1982).

Considered the “Marilyn Monroe” of Tamil cinema, Silk Smitha’s personal life, like her American counterpart, was tragic and shrouded in much gossip and controversy.

Her waning popularity in the industry, bankruptcy, scandals, and ill-starred relationships

8 David Fraiser, Suicide in the Entertainment Industry: An Encyclopedia of 840 Twentith Century Cases (North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2002), 297.

cut-short her life. On the morning of September 23,1996, the thirty-five-year-old star was found dead, hanging from her sari9 tied to a ceiling fan.10 For years, Silk Smitha’s death has served as a reminder to many young women that ambition and fame in the film industry, or any form of deviance from traditional norms of female respectability, will be met with a similar fate. The following section describes how such images in Indian cinema reinforce stereotypical women’s roles in Tamil society.

History of Women’s Roles in Indian Cinema

Early Indian cinema’s founding genre, the mythological, is uniquely Indian in its depiction of tales of gods and goddesses from Hindu mythology.11 Although Indian cinema has developed into various genres over the last few decades, contemporary plots and characters still bear mythological resonances. According to Amita Nijhawan, stereotypical images of women in Bollywood and regional Indian cinema draw on the dichotomies of Sita and Menaka represented in Indian mythology: Sita, the heroine figure that is the ideal, modest wife, obeys and upholds her husband’s word as supreme. Menaka, her alter ego, beguiles men with her charm and overpowering sexuality.12

In addition to mythological dichotomies, historical and cultural formations have also influenced these archetypes. In the years that followed India’s independence in

9 Sari or saree is the five to nine-yard piece of fabric worn with a choli or short bodice by women in the Indian subcontinent.

10 David Fraiser, Suicide in the Entertainment Industry, 297.

11 Rachel Dwyer, Filming the Gods: Religion and Indian Cinema (New York: Routledge, 2005), 15

12 Amita Nijhawan, “Excusing the Female Dancer: Tradition and Transgression in Bollywood Dancing” South Asian Popular Culture 7 no.2 (2009): 101.

1947, the status of women in society became an important marker in the construction of

India’s image as a modern nation. Through social and political ideologies and through social reform, notions of ideal womanhood were clearly imagined. Sangeeta Datta argues that the “nationalist project constitutes the female body as a privileged signifier and various struggles are waged over the meaning and ownership of that body.”13

Partha Chatterjee describes Indian nationalism as highly gendered and founded on notions of the “inner sphere.”14 While the outer sphere represented the West, change, and modernity, the inner sphere was the domain untainted by the West and colonialism.

It represented all that was pure, traditional, and Indian. The image of ideal Indian womanhood was based on notions of the inner sphere. Within the discourse of nationalism and women’s social reform arose ideas of how women should dress, speak, sing, and appear in public. Certain women, such as the devadasis (temple dancers) who occupied public spaces in Hindu society, were associated with the outer sphere and perceived as “fallen” women.

During this formative period, Indian cinema actively took part in constructing the rigid binaries of the “ideal woman” and the “vamp” through images, styles, settings, and voice types. The heroine, an ideal woman, was one who epitomized all virtue and conformed to patriarchal norms of female Indianness. The song-and-dance sequences she inhabited confined her to the domestic sphere and natural pristine settings.

Contrastingly, the role of the vamp played by Franco-Burmese-British-Spanish actress,

13 Sangeetha Datta, “Globalization and Representations of Women in Indian Cinema,’ Social Scientist 28 no. 3. (2000): 73.

14 Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Post-coonial Histories (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993), 101.

Helen, became a standard in Hindi cinema between the1960s and the early 1980s.15

The vamp stood diametrically opposite to the heroine; her exotic foreignness represented uncontrolled sexuality, which was associated with everything deviant, modern, and western. The vamp’s body suggested excess, desire, and vice. Her song- and-dance sequences inhabited a “hypersexualized yet illicit space,” such as the privacy of the bedroom, a nightclub, or a bar.16 Until the 1990s, female actors who played the role of the virtuous heroine never played the role of the vamp and vice- versa.17

Female Playback Singers in Indian Cinema – The Lady and the Vamp

Female voices in Indian cinema developed along similar lines as their on-screen counterparts. Amanda Weidman observes that with the development of playback singing as a profession, female singers were doing something remarkable by entering the studio, a public, male-dominated space. Female singers were not only transgressing cultural norms of respectability but were also performing a genre not considered high- cultural music.18 During the late 1940s, a voice monopoly emerged which enabled a handful of singers to dominate the film music industry for almost four decades.19 Pavitra

Sundar attributes two main reasons for the development of this oligarchy. First, several

15 Jerry J. Pinto, Helen: The Life and Times of an H-bomb. (New Delhi: Penguin, 2006), 97.

16 Ranjini Majumdar, Bombay Cinema: An Archive of the City (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 80.

17 Jerry Pinto, Helen, 97.

18 Amanda Weidman “Stage Goddesses and Studio Divas in South India: On Agency and the Politics of the Voice.” In Words, World, and Material Girls: Language, Gender, Globalization. eds. Boonie S. McElhinny. (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2007), 139.

19 Neepa Majumdar, Wanted Cultured Ladies Only, 176.

wealthy individuals sought to protect or aggrandize their illegal wartime profits by investing in individual singers and actors. Secondly, a mass emigration of performers during India-Pakistan partition in 1947 left only a handful of individuals to reorganize the film music industry.20

Sundar observes that voice monopoly in cinema was more pronounced with female playback singers than it was with male singers.21 Two female playback singers who dominated the Hindi film music industry for almost four decades were Lata

Mangeshkar and her younger sister, Asha Bhosle. Lata Mangeshkar’s voice—its unique, high-pitched, lighter, resonant, lyrical timbre—was markedly different from her predecessors’ thicker, throaty vocal quality. The unique quality of her voice, within the context of nationalist films, was freed from any associations with immorality or sexuality.

It was lauded as the ideal female voice. It represented disembodied femininity, respectability, and innocence associated with the heroine. Mangeshkar’s popularity and rise to stardom coincided with the years that followed Indian independence, conferring on her the title the “voice of the nation.”22

Asha Bhosle’s voice was more versatile, and it provided a perfect counterpoint.

In the 1950s, when leading playback singers refused to lend their voices to characters of the “fallen” women, Bhosle’s was frequently employed.23 Bhosle’s playful, seductive voice, oozing with sexuality, was thus reserved chiefly for the character of the vamp and

20 Pavitra Sundar, "Meri Awaaz Suno: Women, Vocality, and Nation in Hindi Cinema." Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, 8 no. 1 (2007): 144-179.

21Ibid., 167.

22 Ibid.

23 Jayson Beaster-Jones and Natalie Sarrazin (eds). Music in Contemporary Indian Film: Memory, Voice, Identity, 106.

more exotic, modern women who were depicted as singing and dancing in night clubs in

Hindi cinema. Early in the sisters’ careers, music director Anil Biswas is believed to have remarked, “Asha’s voice has body, Lata’s soul.”24 It was with Mangeshkar’s and

Bhosle’s contrasting voices types that voice casting emerged—the process where singers’ voices were consistently matched with particular roles of the heroine and the vamp in Hindi cinema. For decades, filmmakers and audiences associated Bhosle’s voice with the vamp figure played by actress Helen between the 1960s and 1980s.

Voice casting further reinforced the visual dichotomies of the heroine and the vamp.

A similar monopoly and vocal dichotomy prevailed in South Indian’s regional language Tamil cinema. However, tropes of the ideal woman in Tamil films reflected the pride in a Tamil state, language and culture.25 When Silk Smitha emerged as a star in

Tamil film in the 1980s, the voices of playback singers S. Janaki and P. Susheela came to be associated with the role of the vamp in Tamil cinema. However, unlike Hindi cinema’s Helen who largely embodied illicit roles, Silk Smitha’s characters simultaneously embodied the deviant, modern woman, who was unabashedly sexual, yet someone who could also demonstrate traditional values worthy of becoming the dutiful wife to the hero. In such films, where Smitha’s roles were blurred, lay the notion that it was the virtuous hero’s moment of vice that is instrumental in the the rescue, reform, and reintegration of the fallen women into respectable society.

24 Jayson Beaster-Jones and Natalie Sarrazin, eds., Music in Contemporary Indian Film, 106.

25 Amanda Weidman, “Neoliberal Logics of Voice, 175-193.

“Adiye Manam Nilluna,” from Neengal Kettavai

In the 1984 Tamil film Neengal Kettavai (Listner’s Choice) directed by Balu

Mahendra, Silk Smitha plays the female lead role of a modern, stage singer-dancer and live-in girlfriend to the hero, Arun. The film revolves around the tale of Arun and his elder brother, Ramu, who were separated in childhood, after the death of their widowed mother, who was raped and murdered by a wealthy business man. Ramu, raised and trained by his maternal uncle, becomes a martial artist and stuntman in the film industry.

Arun, raised by a blind musician, becomes a popular singer. Unusual turn of events leads the brothers to join forces to avenge their mother’s death.

The film contains six songs, of which “Adiye Manam Nilluna,” a duet sung by veteran playback singers S. P. Balasubrahmanyam and S. Janaki, is one of the longest in the film, spanning almost five minutes. Typically, song-and-dance sequences are central to the film narrative.26 “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di” is no exception; in terms of filmic function, it serves to further the plot. The preceding scene depicts a young girl dancing in her living room to one of Arun’s popular hits, blasting from a radio.

Her father storms into the room. The audience recognizes the father as none other than the man who raped and murdered Arun’s mother. He reprimands her silly infatuation with Arun, and orders her to focus on her studies. The girl displays her rebellion by vowing to attend Arun’s concert that evening. The scene quickly transitions to the concert hall. The young girl seated among the audience watches Arun, his girlfriend

(Silk Smitha), and their band perform “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di.” Table 2-1

26 Ranjini Majumdar, Bombay Cinema: An Archive of the City (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 98.

and the section that follows provides a detailed analysis of the highly-gendered musical, textual, and visual aspects of “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di.”

Table 2-1. Musical, Textual and Visual Analysis of “Adiye Manam Nilluna” from Neengal Kettavai (1984) Time Instruments Lyrics Visual and Tamil transliterated, Romanized Description Harmonic and English translation in italics Sequence 00:00 – BGM1 27 Silk Smitha 0:25 dances Percussion: suggestively on thavil and drum stage as lights

call and keep time to the response. vibrant rhythms. Synth, electric The camera and lead guitar pans shots of join in. the instrumentalists C#m-B-C#m-B- engaged in a call C#m-B- C#m-B- and response G#- C#m-A-F#- between thavil G-C#m-A-F#m- and drum. Arun G#- waves his arms about vigorously conducting the keyboardist and the electric guitarist. The young girl in the audience looks on, lustfully. Arun joins Smitha; the couple dance ecstatically to the pulsating rhythms.

27 Local film music directors typically refer to instrumental sections in songs as well as film soundtracks with the acronym BGM (background music).

Table 2-1. Continued. Instruments Lyrics Visual Time and Tamil transliterated, Romanized and Description English translation in italics Harmonic Sequence

Arun: Are haan… Silk and Arun 00:25 – Call and use the call 0:32 Response Silk: Yeppa and Vocalization: Arun: haan response. Silk: Yemma Smitha Instruments: Arun: hey… swoons back Silk: Yepppapa and towards Arun: haan Arun on the Silk: Yemma stage. G#-C#m-A- F#m-G#-C#m- Arun: 00:32 – Pallavi 1 Adiye manam nilluna nikkaathu di 0:55 (Chorus): male Hey girl, my heart won’t stop! voice. Prominently Kodiye enna kandu nee sokkaatha di features festive Hey babe, don’t fall for me, Ganpath Percussion Thaappala podaama ketpaara kelaama, Koopaadu podaathadi C#m-A-F#m- Don’t moan without shutting the door, G#-C#m-C#m- without my permission. A-F#m-G#- C#m-B-E-A- F#m-B-A7-G#- C#m-A-F#m- G#-C#m-C#m- A-G#

Table 2-1. Continued Time Instruments Lyrics Visual and Tamil transliterated, Romanized and Description Harmonic English translation in italics Sequence 00:56 – BGM 2 The interlude 1:26 transitions C#m-B-G#- outdoors: C#m-B-G#- across open C#m-B-G#- fields, plains, C#m-F#m-B-E- mountainous E-F#m-B-E-E- regions, and F#m-B-A-F#-B- amid nature D#7-G# Smitha, Arun, and the band 1:26 – 1:50 Charanam 1 Arun: are seen (Verse): male Vetkam ennadi thukkam ennadi performing voice Why are you shy? Why hesitate? singing and prancing Utharava sonna pinbu thappu ennadi around trees. C#m-A-C#m-A- What’s the matter? You gave your F#m-B-B-E-B-E- consent. B-G#m-C#m- C#m-A-C#m-A- Mutham ennadi muthu pennadi F#m-B-B-G#m- Kiss me my dear pearl! C#m Mottaveezhka enna vanthu katti kolladi You, blossomed rosebud, come closer, hug me.

Table 2-1. Continued Instruments Lyrics Visual Time and Tamil transliterated, Romanized and Description English translation in italics Harmonic Sequence Silk: 1:50 – 2:08 Charanam 2: Manam kekkaatha kelvi ellam female voice kekuthaiyaa My heart asks questions it has never asked before C#m-G#-C#m- A-G#-C#m-A- Paakaatha paarvai ellaam G#-C#m-F#m- paakuthaiyaa G#-C#m-A- It sees things it has never seen F#m-A-B6-C#m- before B Kaalam kadakuthu kattazhagu karaiyuthu Time flies, my beauty fades

Kaathu kalakuren kaiya konjam pudi I wait with longing, come hold my hand… 2:08 – 2:28 Pallavi 2: male Arun: sings chorus voice Silk: breathy ‘aha’ and ‘la la’

C#m-A-F#m- G#-C#m-C#m- A-F#m-G#- C#m-B-E-A- F#m-B-A7-G#- C#m-A-F#m-A7- G#

2:28 – 2:53 BGM 3 B-E-B-E-E-A-E- B-E-B-E-A-E-B- E-B-C#m-B-A- B-G#-G#

Table 2-1. Continued Time Instruments Lyrics Visual and Tamil transliterated, Romanized and Description Harmonic English translation in italics Sequence 2:53 – 2:56 G# Outdoor Vocalization: scenes: Arun Arun: hiya hiya hiya (2) and Smitha are seen 2:56 – 3:32 Arun: singing and Charanam 3: Kattilirukku dancing as male and Here’s my cot, they swoon female voice on a make- duet Silk: ahaa shift round bed and C#m-A-C#m-A- Arun: around trees. F#m-B-B-E-B-E- Methai irukku B-C#m-C#m-A- Here’s my bed C#m-A-F#m-B- B-E-B-E-B- Silk: ahaa C#m-G#-C#m- A-G#-C#m- Arun: F#m-G#-C#m- Kattalaiya ketta pinbu sorgam irukku F#m-Edim-A7- Your wish is my command, I’ll show B6-C#m- B you heaven

Silk: Kitta irukku katti norukku It is close by, break it as you will,

Thattugira melangala thatti muzhakku Hit it as hard as you want.

Arun: Thoongaama naan kaanum soppaname You’re my waking dream, my reality

Silk: Unakkaaga en meni arpaname I dedicate my body to you.

Šaanthu kadakuren I am crushing sandal (sperm),

Thola thottu azhuthikka Hold my shoulder.

Table 2-1. Continued Time Instruments Lyrics Visual and Tamil transliterated, Romanized and Description Harmonic English translation in italics Sequence Solai kili enna sokka vechu pudi You fill up my senses

3:32 – 3:52 Pallavi 3: male Arun: sings chorus emphasizing Arun grabs voice ‘Adiye,’ Smitha and Silk: breathy ‘aha’ and ‘la la’ taps her hip C#m-A-F#m- as if he were G#-C#m-A- playing the F#m-G#-C#m- thavil. B-E-A-F#m-B- A7-G#-C#m-A- F#m-A7-G#

3:52 – 4:13 BGM 4 More dancing around trees. C#m-C#m6- C#m-C#m-F#m- A-A#dim-A#dim- G#sus4-G#- G#7-C#m-E- F#m-A-B-E- F#m-A-B-E-B-E- B-E-B-G#

4:13 – 4:37 Arun: Charanam 4: Ichai enbathu ucham ullathu male and My lust is at its peak female voice duet Inthirana pola oru macham ullathu Like Lord Indira (the playboy) I have C#m-B-C#m-A- a big mole (luck) F#m-B-B-E-B-E- E-B-C#m-G#- Silk: C#m-A-G#- Pakkam ullathu pattu pennithu C#m-F#m-G#- I am a soft, silky woman by your C#m-F#m- side, Edim-A7-B6- Ènnidamo inbam mattum micham C#m-B ullathu I have only pleasure to give you. Arun: Ithu paalaaga thenaaga ooruvathu

Table 2-1. Continued Time Instruments and Lyrics Visual Harmonic Tamil transliterated, Romanized and Description Sequence English translation in italics Pleasure flows like milk and honey

Silk: Paaraatha mogangal kooruvathu Hidden lust confirms this

Arun: Paasam irukkuthu pakkam vanthu anachikka I have lots of love for you, come embrace me.

Silk: Kaalu thavikkithu pakkuvama pudi My legs quiver. old me gently.

Pallavi 4: Arun: sings chorus On the final 4:37 – 5:00 male voice Silk: breathy ‘aha’ and ‘la la’ pallavi, the scene shifts back to the C#m-A-F#m- concert hall G#-C#m-A- where Arun F#m-G#-C#m- and Smitha B-E-A-F#m-B- were dancing A7-G#-C#m-A- and singing F#m-A7-G#- at the C#m beginning of the song. As the final chorus fades out audience members smile and applaud as they leave the concert hall, signifying the end of a successful show.

In the opening shot of the song’s scene, the camera pans closer to the stage in a concert hall. Silk Smitha dances suggestively to a persistent, 18-measure percussion introduction in 12/8 time (Example 2-1). Stage lights keep time to the pounding rhythms varying between quarter and eighth notes, played as a percussion exchange between the western drum kit and the south Indian thavil. Along with these sonic elements, the visual juxtaposition of Silk Smitha dancing between these instruments reinforces the notion of a contemporary Indian woman straddled between tradition (represented by the thavil) and modernity (represented by the drum kit). Scholars of popular music point out that insistent rhythms frequently signify “sexual insistence,” denying “the concept of feminine respectability.”28 The opening BGM continues with heavy disco-fusion instrumentation: synth lead, electric and bass guitar combined with Indian venu

(bamboo flute), nadaswaram (double reed wind), and thavil (barrel-shaped percussion).

28 Simon Frith and Angela McRobbie. “Rock and Sexuality,” in On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word, eds. Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin. (New York: Routledge, 1990); 388.

Example 2-1. 18 measure percussion introduction exchange between western drum kit and south Indian thavil to “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di.” Author’s transcription.

The camera pans slowly to close-ups of Arun flailing his arms vigorously in an attempt to conduct the keyboardist and the electric guitarist. The camera then pans to the young girl from the previous scene; disobedient and rebellious to the demands of her father, seated among the audience, she looks on at Arun lustfully. The camera pans

back to Arun and Smitha. Dressed in white, figure-revealing pant-suits, they sing and dance suggestively to a heavy disco-fusion instrumental introduction (Figure 2-5).

Figure 2-5. Arun and Smitha dance suggestively to the instrumental introduction.

As the opening BGM in C# minor ends, male playback singer S. P.

Balasubrahmanyam’s lyrical tenor employed for Arun and female playback singer S.

Janaki’s nasal soprano for Silk Smitha engage in a call and response vocable exchange. (Example 2-2):

Example 2-2. Vocable exchange preceding the pallavi. Author’s transcription.

The vocable section is followed by the pallavi (chorus). Arun dances around

Smitha on the concert stage. He teases her, singing, “Hey girl, my heart won’t stop! Hey babe, don’t fall for me” (Example 2-3).

Example 2-3. Arun’s opening solo pallavi. Author’s transcription.

As soon as the pallavi ends and transitions into the second BGM, the scene shifts to the the cliched “singing and dancing around trees.” Arun, Smitha and the band are depicted performing across multiple natural settings—open fields, plains, and mountainous regions (Figure 2-6).

Figure 2-6. Arun and Smitha singing and dancing in non-diegetic scenic locations.

Such abrupt filmic shifts depicting the hero and heroine singing and dancing in exotic or scenic landscapes might appear to have little to do with the diegesis and may even appear comical to audiences less familiar with Indian cinematic techniques.

However, in the Indian imagination, such filmic strategies serve to emphasize a kind of

oozing, phantasmagorical sexuality, which cannot be depicted explicitly onscreen.

Moreover, within the context of the Hollywood musical, Richard Dyer points out that these sites represent the utopian and idealized impulses for the star’s presence.

Furthermore, the artificial geography intensifies the emotions that characterizes the utopianism of song sequences.29

Unlike the chorus, where Arun playfully teases Smitha, telling her not to fall for him, in his first charanam (verse), he is smitten and has fallen for her completely. He makes explicit sexual advances to gain control over her and unabashedly invites Smitha to join him on a makeshift bed (Figure 2-7).

Figure 2-7. Arun makes explicit sexual advances. Photo screenshot from video.

Engulfed by Smitha’s beguiling sexuality, Arun begins charanam 3 with a guileless promise to fulfill her desire, show her sorgam, heaven or ultimate bliss.

Smitha, initially coy, teases him with her sassy, “Ah-haa…haa hmm” (Example 2-4).

29 Richard Dyer, “Entertainment Utopia,” in Genre: The Musical, ed., Rick Altman (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981), 177.

Example 2-4. Smitha joins Arun with her “Ah-haa…haa hmm” on subsequent pallavis. Author’s transcription.

Charanam 3 begins with Arun’s invitation to Smitha to join him on his bed. The lyrics of charanam 3 and 4 swerve graphically into a full-fledged duet with symbolic references that deal with sexual intercourse (Figure-2-8).

Figure 2-8. Author’s translation of Charnam 3 and 4 “Adiye Manam Nilluna,” from Neengal Kettavai.

On the first pallavi, Smitha sings with breathy, husky, gutturally sensual interjections (Example 2-2). On the second, her “la las” and “ahaas” become sporadic, teasing Arun and creating sexual tension. With each repetition of the pallavi, her vocables become more prominent and involved; they build up in the final pallavi into a full call and response. Arun’s lyrics overlap and intertwine with Smitha’s non-verbal utterances throughout the final pallavi (Example 2-5). As the final pallavi ends, the outdoor scene transitions to the concert hall performance at the beginning of the song.

In measure 183 (Figure 2-14), the piercing dissonant G natural of the declamatory female voice, with its sexualized timbres and husky, breathy tones, constructs a “bodily presence,” acquiring associations to “womanly sexuality and womanly authority.”30

30 Amanda Weidman, “Voices of Meenakumari: Sound, Meaning and Self-Fashioning in Performances of an Item Number,” South Asian Popular Culture 10 (2012): 310.

Example 2-5. Smitha’s more involved exchanges with Arun on the final pallavi. Author’s transcription.

Interspersed thoughout the song, visuals of Smitha depict her in the throes of ecstasy—lips and mouth seductively parted, heaving bosom, pelvic thrusts, hips gyrating, arms and legs flailing, bouncing seductively in Arun’s arms, a burlesque shimmy—reinforce sexual desire and satisfaction. The lyrics and music that accompany these visuals are intended to gratify largely male audience’s sexual fantasies (Figure 2-

9). Although Smitha does not play the standard role of the vamp in this film, her dancing body in modern attire along with suggestive lyrics she lip syncs indicate that she is sexually available, and at times even sexually assertive and aggressive.

Figure 2-9. Visuals of Smitha in the throes of ecstacy.

Throughout the song (and the film), Silk Smitha lacks a sense of identity; she remains nameless, a mere reactive object, willing to please Arun as his partner on stage and within their domestic space. She is neither a vamp nor respectable woman; she

simultaneously embodies and blurs the characteristics of these traditional dichotomies.

Furthermore, the vocal qualities of playback singer S. Janaki blur the boundaries between the traditional female roles. Janaki’s powerful, projected vocal quality linked to folk idioms, along with the loud, technologically-mediated discotheque music are familiar sonorities that index the modern, non-respectable woman. But, we also hear Janaki’s high-pitched, lyrical voice, a quality commonly associated in Indian film with the virtuous heroine. In this film, Smitha visually and sonically embodies the lady and the vamp. In this blurred role both visually and sonically, Smitha enjoys the freedom of exploring an identity that is simultaneously traditional and deviant, demure yet also sexually assertive. Arun is attracted to Smitha’s seductive charms; he is also captivated by her willingness to be subservient as a dutiful spouse.

In one of the final scenes towards the end of the film, Smitha worries that her profession as a public performer has marred her reputation and will leave her a lonely spinster. At this point, Arun declares his undying love for her; he promises to marry and love her forever. He reminds her that no matter how glamorous she may look in modern outfits on stage, her character and beauty is most alluring in a traditional sari at home by his side. It may be simplistic to dismiss Smitha as mindlessly succumbing to male desire. It cannot be discounted that Silk Smitha’s sexuality both on and off screen remained a source of desire and dread. For many young Tamil women, Smitha represented the possibility of a new mode of female agency and femininity.

Non-filmic Covers of “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di”

As the chief form of popular music in Chennai and the diaspora, Tamil film songs frequently move beyond their narrative contexts when re-enacted by musicians and fans at social gatherings and cultural events. Circulated within these new contexts, film

songs take on a life of their own and create new meanings. Weidman points out, “there has been relatively little attention paid to the way in which film songs are performed— sung and danced” outside their filmic contexts.31 A quick search on YouTube reveals this 1980s hit still enjoys considerable attention through live covers within various musical settings in popular culture. The following section explores how audiences have engaged with and re-signified the images and voices of Smitha through re-enactment of

“Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di” in popular culture.

Figure 2-10. Live-concert rendition of “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di,” by playback singers Anitha and Karthik in Washington D.C.32

In 2016, film music director Yuvan (Ilaiyaraaja’s son) and popular playback singers,

Karthik and Anitha, performed “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di,” with Ilaiyaraaja conducting on a concert tour in Washington DC (Figure 12-10). Within this live concert setting, the rendition by Anitha, a contemporary female playback singer, displayed none

31 Amanda Weidman, “Voices of Meenakumari: Sound, Meaning and Self-Fashioning in Performances of an Item Number,” South Asian Popular Culture 10 (2012): 307.

32 “Adiye Manam by Karthik, Yuvan & Anitha @ Isaignani Ilaiyaraaja's Washington DC Concert, 2016,” YouTube video, posted by "Ilaiyaraaja DC," September 30, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohU ufEJjBkU.

of S. Janaki’s sensual tones. Anitha’s stage rendition rejects the conventions of breathy, husky tones indexically linked to female sexuality, which are frequently demanded by male film music directors within a recording studio. Her high-pitched, sweet, lyrical tone soars over the percussion and synth accompaniment. She smiled, blushing with each

“ahaa” and “la lahs” she sang over the pallavi sung by Yuvan and Karthik’s male voices.

Although Anitha is dressed in a sleeveless salwar kameez that could pass off as an Indo-western outfit—a marker of a contemporary youth glocal identity—her vocal and bodily comportment on a stage embodied the demeanor of iconic respectable Indian female playback singers of previous generations. Like her predecessors, Anitha conveys no emotion through bodily movement; through subtle movement of her hand she sought to convey an interior emotion inherent in the raga of the song.33 She stands stationary before the microphone, her eyes remain fixed on the music stand throughout the entire performance, only occasionally glancing up to make eye contact with her male counterparts on stage during the instrumental interludes – a marker of traditional norms of female respectability. Unlike Anitha, her male counterparts, Yuvan and

Karthik, dance to the vibrant rhythms; they interact with each other as they sing and high-five each other during music interludes. Regardless of how some middle-class female singers appear or carry themselves in public, a charismatic public performance for singers like Anitha is still perceived as risky and unrespectable; very few contemporary female singers rely on manipulating their audience with their voices and bodily movements during a stage performance.

33 Amanda Weidman, “Neoliberal Logics of Voice: playback Singing and Public Femaleness in South India” Culture, Theory and Critique 55, no 2 (2014):175-193.

Figure 2-11. Local singers perfomer ‘Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di,’ at a college alumnus meet in Salem.34

The second cover of “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di” I wish to explore is a rendition of two local singers performing to a minus one track35 at the Government

College of Engineering, Salem, Batch (Class of) 1992 Alumni Meet in 2017 (Figure 2-

11). At the beginning of the song, the singers can be viewed singing alone on the dais.

Male audience members (alumni) dance boisterously below the podium, while female members stand awkwardly on the fringes, hesitant to join in. Toward the end of the performance, after the two highly explicit charanams, only male audience members have moved on to the dais, and dance with the singers. The handful of female audience members restrained by their middle-class values of propriety hold hands and move around clockwise in a circle below the podium in the right-hand corner of the room. This cover demonstrates how women’s and men’s bodies are positioned differently within the socio-cultural event. While women are bound by rigid social conventions, men have

34 “GCE Salem 1992 - Alumni Meet 2017 - Adiye Manam Nilluna,” YouTube video, posted by GCE Salem Batch 1992,” August 18, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8rL3TH-0bg.

35 Typically, a studio recorded backing or accompanying instrumental track of a popular song that does not include the lead singer or lead instrument’s main melody, hence the term “minus one.” During a recording or a live performance, the main singer or instrument performs over the minus one track. The term “minus one track” is not to be confused with “karaoke,” a re-recorded track which includes the main melody along with a basic chord progression for its accompaniment to assist amateur musicians in their sing-along performance.

opportunities to reinforce the heterosocial relations that govern gender norms of their daily lives.

Figure 2-12. Karakāṭṭam (hereditary folk, street performers) perfoming “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di.”36

To offer a contrast of how gender norms impact women from different castes, I present two recent YouTube videos of Karakāṭṭam (hereditary folk, street performers typically associated with the lower dalit caste). Within public spaces (open fair grounds and streets), both dance re-enactments of “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di” depict two skimpily-clad female performers dancing suggestively, while a single male dancer grabs and gropes them to present an erotic, titillating performance to an ogling male audience (Figure 2-12). Highly suggestive songs like “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu

Di” frequently draw on the perceived erotic aesthetics of local folk music and dance genres, lyrical content, instrumentation, costumes, and settings to enhance the audio- visual experience in cinema. While such appropriation and resignification in Tamil film songs has profited the film industry immensely, these hereditary folk musicians and

36 “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkadhadi song of the Band music,” YouTube video, posted by “Entertainment TN,” September 15, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEr1g9YBiR8. (left) and “Adiye! Manam Nilluna Nikkathudi Mobitel Promotion and Theri Promotion,” YouTube video, posted by Daya Karthir, April 13, 2016“h. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi6ee3ySnNI (right).

dancers themselves are frequently and increasingly condemned by middle-class audiences as irreputable, erotic dancers. Scholars frequently observe how the history of such exclusion dates back to colonial views that marginalized folk hereditary performers such as devadasis (temple dancers), tawaifs (courtesans), and nautch girls (dancing girls). In Illicit Worlds of Indian Dance, Anna Morcom posits that such colonial and heteropatriarchal exclusionary attitudes and practices towards nonnormative performers still bear resonances today; the identity of “a public/erotic female performer is a prostitute and therefore not a performer.”37

Mazan Sisters’ Cover, ‘Tribute to the Glamour Queen, Late Silk Smitha’

Among many recent non-filmic live and recorded re-enactments of “Adiye Manam

Nilluna Nikkaathu Di” on YouTube, the Mazan Duo’s recorded cover, “Tribute to the

Glamour Queen, Late Silk Smitha,” was markedly different. Unlike most covers that reinforce stereotypical images of Silk Smitha, their re-enactment bears structural, musical, and visual transformations. The following section of this chapter provides a detailed analysis of Vandana and Vagu’s cover (Table 2-2); it offers a stark contrast to the music, visual, and textual elements of the original filmic version.

37 Anna Morcom, Illicit Worlds of Indian Dance: Cultures of Exclusion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 42.

Table 2-2. “Adiye Manam Nilluna,” Cover – Musical, Textual and Visual Analysis Time Instruments Lyrics Tamil transliterated, Visual and Romanized and English Description Harmonic translation in italics Sequence Vandana’s voice:

00:00 – Musical Stock profile 0:11 Introduction photography Acoustic, of Silk electric and Smitha from

bass guitar the internet. introduction. While some of the Am-C-G-Am- images C reveal her beauty, none of the images objectify her.

00:11 – Chorus: Adiye manam nilluna nikkaathu di 0:46 Hey girl, my heart won’t stop! G-Am-F-C-G- Am-G-C- Kodiye enna kandu nee sokkaatha G-Am-G-Am- di Hey babe, G-F-G-Em-Am- don’t fall for me, C-G-Am-Em- Am-C-G-Am- Thaappala podaama ketpaara Em kelaama, Koopaadu podaathadi Don’t moan without shutting the door, without my permission. 00:46 – Musical 1:02 interlude Am-F-C-G-Am- F-C-Am-G

Table 2-2. Continued. Time Instruments Lyrics Tamil transliterated, Visual and Romanized and English translation Description Harmonic in italics Sequence Vandana’s voice:

1:02 – 1:36 Verse 1: Vetkam ennadi thukkam ennadi Why are you shy? Why hesitate? Am-F-C-G-C— G-F-Em-Am-F- Utharava sonna pinbu thappu C-G-Am-Am-E- ennadi Am-G What’s the matter? You gave your consent.

Mutham ennadi muthu pennadi Kiss me my dear pearl!

Mottaveezhka enna vanthu katti kolladi You, blossomed rosebud, come closer, hug me.

Verse 2: Manam kekkaatha kelvi ellam kekuthaiyaa My heart asks questions it has never asked before

Paakaatha paarvai ellaam paakuthaiyaa It sees things it has never seen before

Kaalam kadakuthu kattazhagu karaiyuthu Time flies, my beauty fades

Kaathu kalakuren kaiya konjam pudi I wait with longing, come hold my hand…

Table 2-2. Continued Time Instruments Lyrics Tamil transliterated, Visual and Romanized and English translation Description Harmonic in italics Sequence Vandana’s voice:

1:36 – 2:12 Chorus: Adiye manam nilluna nikkaathu di Hey girl, my heart won’t stop! Am-C-G-Am- Em-Am-C-G- Kodiye enna kandu nee sokkaatha Am-Em-C-G-G- di Hey babe, G-F#M7(b5)-F- don’t fall for me, Cdim-G7-E7- Am-C-G-Am-G- Thaappala podaama ketpaara Am-C-G-Em kelaama, Koopaadu podaathadi Don’t moan without shutting the door, without my permission.

End credits and Recording Studio Information 2:12-2:20

While Mazan Duo retained the original melody and lyrics, they made significant stylistic and structural alterations that transform the vivacious filmic version into a melancholic tribute of despair mourning the loss of Silk Smitha. The figure below and the section that follows provide a detailed exploration into some of these innovative visual and sonic transformations (Figure 2-13).

Figure 2-13. “Adiye Manam Nilluna,” Original and Mazan Cover

Visually, in lieu of stereotypical images of Smitha depicting sexual excess, the

Mazan cover presents modest profile images of the star (Figure 2-14).

Figure 2-14. Mazan Duo’s cover depicting modest stock profile photographs of female actor Silk Smitha.

Vandana and Vagu replace insistent rhythms, typically associated with sexuality in 12/8 vivace ( = 160) tempo in the original filmic version with 6/4 in adagio ( = 56).

Although the sisters retain the same melody, they transpose the filmic harmonic chord progression i-vi-iv-v-i in C# minor to i-vi-III-VII in A minor. Lyrically, the sisters make no alterations. However, they completely omit charanam 3 and 4 (Figure 2-8). By censuring and denying the female voice a sense of gratification in the song, the sisters might appear to subscribe to traditional notions of female respectability. However, in rejecting and subverting the conventions of male perspectives on female sexuality in this film music genre, the Mazan sisters evoke a power and privilege that previously only men had access to in the film industry and society. The omission of hyper-sexualized lyrics

(charanams 3 and 4) shifts the erotic mood and tone of the song into an expression of austere deification and melancholia. Moreover, the male-female vocal duet over heavy disco synth lead, electric and bass guitar combined with venu (bamboo flute), nadaswaram (double reed wind) and thavil (barrel-shaped percussion) accompaniment from the original filmic version are stripped down to Vandana’s solo over a sampled drum set on loop. Vagu’s electric guitar riffs and acoustic guitar plucked arpeggiated style, typically found in American country music, make for a stark texture, which reinforces the somber aesthetic (Example 2-6).

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Example 2-6. Mazan Duo’s sparsely textured cover evokes a somber aesthetic. Author’s transcription.

Moving away from the S. Janaki’s 1980s filmic high-pitched, nasally pinched vocal style, Vandana’s husky, smooth, crooning bluesy rendition transforms the peppy, erotic dance song into a chant of despair. Vandana’s crooning, bluesy style simultaneously indexes sensuality and evokes pathos. Crooning as a vocal style was discovered and popularized:

by singers and sound engineers in the early days of sound recording when it was discovered that microphones could not cope with the extreme dynamic ranges possessed by singers used to commanding the large space of the concert hall. The crooning voice is seductive because it appears to be at our ear…38

Popular music scholars observe that this fantasy quality reinforces a latent sexuality, which would not be appropriate in public performance, but was permissible in

38 Simon Frith, Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1996), 201.

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a recording.39 Similarly, Vandana’s crooning vocal quality evokes images of the sultry, sensual Silk Smitha.

The Mazan sisters’ characteristic studio recording techniques, which include close placement of the microphone and maximum reverb, captures Vandana’s breathing and the clarity of her diction. Commenting on the relationship between a singer’s use of the microphone and the production of intimacy in recordings, Frith suggests, “The microphone makes audible and expressive a whole range of organic vocal sounds which are edited out in ordinary listening: the liquidity of the saliva, the hissings and tiny shudders of the breath, the clicking of the tongue and teeth, and popping of the lips.40 This is reminiscent of what Roland Barthes refers to as the “grain of the voice,” in a recording, the ability to hear “the body in the voice as it sings, the hand…the limb as it performs.”41 Combined with Vandana’s haunting, ethereal tone, her languorous articulation with each repetition of the word “Adiye,” in her enunciated voiced and voiceless plosive consonants, we hear this sense of intimacy. Bonnie

Gordon observes similar recording techniques in Tori Amos’ recordings and suggests that such techniques serve to create a “sonic intimacy usually reserved for personal conversation.”42 Viewed through this lens, the sisters’ interpretative cover invites their audience into a personal conversation in which they recount their intimate feelings

39 Simon Frith, Performing Rites, 201.

40 Ibid.

41 Roland Barthes, “The Grain of the Voice,” in Image, Music, Text, trans. Stephen Heath, (London: Fontana Press, 1977), 188.

42 Bonnie Gordon "Tori Amos's Inner Voices," in Women's Voices Across Musical Worlds, ed. Jane Bernstein (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004).

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about a glamorous star who was myopically stigmatized as a vamp in Tamil cinema and popular culture.

Within the space of the cover song, female, self-taught musicians like Vandana and Vagu have opportunities to explore a more integrated female identity of a female actress so maliciously maligned and dubbed the south Indian “soft porn star.” In their cover, the duo subversively rejects the mainstream musical, lyrical, and visual conventions. The Mazans’ “Adiye Manam Nilluna” undergoes a metamorphosis; the genre of interpretative/metamorphic, cross-gender covers provide a space for young, self-taught cover artists like the Mazan sisters to reshape the politics of the male gaze, hypersexualised male desire, and female objectification within the Tamil film music industry and society at large.

Conclusion

The 1984 film song, “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di,” draws on highly- gendered musical, textual, and visual elements, which evoke images of the highly- erotic, hypersexualized images of the 1980s sexually-available woman in Tamil cinema—Silk Smitha. However, lyricist Valli’s brilliant puns, along with composer

Ilayaraja’s catchy melody and rhythms have resulted in some audiences failing to catch the explicit, ribald lyrics and sexually-charged indices. The original film song has largely been viewed as a “peppy,” “fun” song, rife with teasing. Very seldom do audiences consider the implications of the lyrics.

Through re-enactments of “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di,” audiences can

“at once celebrate meaning and meaninglessness, play and nostalgia, pathos and

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jouissance.43” Moreover, covering a song can also be an assertion or a rejection of mainstream ideologies. More than four decades since its initial release, re-enactments of “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di,” in popular culture reveal complex attitudes toward Silk Smitha’s desirable, yet dreaded sexuality. Middle-class women who sing and dance to the song at social occasions along with friends and family frequently conform to female norms of respectability; they dance awkwardly, only reinforcing incongruence with the sentiment of the song. Folk female dancers, typically from a lower caste who are hired to dance at cultural or corporate events, are required to embody the essence of Silk rather than uphold patriarchal values; these women are objectified and required to perpetuate stereotypical notions of female sexual availability.

And in doing so, they are also socially maligned and marginalized. Yet, through their performance they demonstrate a more empowered integrated form of femininity and sexuality. An exploration of these re-enactments in this chapter provides insights that enhance our understanding of complex, dynamic interconnections between gender, caste, class, and patriarchal norms of female respectability. Such an exploration reveals the key differences and divisions between expectations for Tamil women from different classes and castes, and how they subscribe or subvert traditional norms in public performance.

When a song like “Adiye Manam Nilluna Nikkaathu Di” receives traction from a cover artist and their fans new meanings are conveyed that suggest a transformation within a historical process. Unlike most re-enactments that reinforce highly gendered

43 Peter Manuel “Music as Symbol, Music as Simulacrum: Postmodern, Pre-modern, and Modern Aesthetics in Subcultural Popular Musics,” Popular Music 14, no.2 (1995), 229.

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stereotypes, the Mazan Duo uses tactics in the de Certeauian sense; their “Tribute to the Glamour Queen” is part of an adaptive loop. The Mazan sisters take advantage of the changes and possibilities that covers offer. They use tactical agility or adaptability to overthrow traditional musical, structural, and visual norms. This recalls Judith Butler’s observations that resignification has the potential to defuse power not by banning it, but by reworking its meaning.44 The Mazans’ cover strips away the male-centric bravado, female objectification, and sexual acerbity. With musical, structural, and visual transformations, sparse harmonic texture, a crooning vocal delivery, and recording strategies, the Mazans’ craft a mood and tone of pathos and melancholic despair. Their interpretative cover sheds light on the Silk Smitha as an empowered goddess, a

“Queen,” an image seldom portrayed in popular Tamil film industry and media. Their interpretative cover aims to provide Silk Smitha with a more integrated female identity.

In and through the process of resignification, “Adiye Manam Nilluna” continues to actively participate in a chain of “unlimited semiosis.”45 Resignification as a musical strategy forces cover artists to make decisions, and in turn they provoke their audiences to contemplate, rather than passively consume. This chapter argued that metamorphic covers, provide young self-taught women like the Mazan sisters with tools for creative agency, enabling them to give voice to marginalized feminine characters within the margins of mainstream Tamil cinema. In doing so, female artists have opportunities to reshape the politics of onscreen female sexual desire for contemporary female

44 Judith Butler, Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative (New York: Routledge, 1997), 15.

45 Thomas Turino, Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation. (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2008).

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empowerment. However, re-signification recognises that meaning can never be permanently fixed and that meaning lies outside the control of any single author or composer.46

46 Butler, Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative, 15.

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CHAPTER 3 “YOU’RE NOTHING WITHOUT THE STUDIO:” FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIANS CLAIMING STUDIO SPACE AND ROLES

This chapter moves away from the transformative potential of covers as a genre to the new possibilities that their centers of production—small-scale recording studios— have enabled for self-taught, female musicians in Chennai. Historically, the recording studio has been regarded as a site for male creativity.1 Within this domain, women’s roles and contributions have been confined chiefly to that of singer. Singing as a musical skill has traditionally been viewed as “natural” or “artless,” something which requires no technical skill,2 and therefore is non-threatening to patriarchal norms. Any move towards music production for a woman is, however, a threat to this status quo and met with resistance. In this chapter, Vandana’s story demonstrates how she gained control over studio space and production through enactments of agency at the familial level, which ultimately enabled her to explore multiple non-traditional studio roles.

In the introductory chapter, I highlighted how Bhavatharini and A.R. Reihana’s familial connections, and access to studio space and technology facilitated their début as film music directors in Tamil cinema. Today female musicians who can afford to attend A. R. Rahman’s K.M. Conservatory have opportunities to gain skill and knowledge in sound production. Unlike these young women from more privileged backgrounds, the middle-class Mazan sisters had unique circumstances which allowed them to literally carve out their studio space and create a niche for themselves as

1 Sarah Cohen, “Popular music, Gender and Sexuality,” eds., The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 232.

2 Simon Frith, Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press.1998), 155.

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professional live and studio cover artists, on the margins of mainstream film music production.

This chapter begins by describing how I initially re-connected with the Mazan sisters upon my arrival in Chennai. It was within the physical setting of their small-scale studio that Vandana revealed her story: how patriarchal authority both enabled and curbed her freedom, as well as how through several skillful negotiations she gained control over studio space and production. This chapter draws on a confluence of voices—Vandana’s, third space feminist scholars, and mine (the ethnographer).

Together, these voices create a multi-vocal narrative to argue that access to the studio and its technology enabled Vandana opportunities to explore the multiple musical roles, which would enable her to gain personal, professional, and economic freedom.

Fieldnotes from early in my research in Chennai reveal the difficulty I initially had with establishing contact with home studio owners who had previously agreed to participate in my research. During these initial days of fieldwork, I began to realize that my online interactions had amounted to nothing more than the loose connections brought on by “incessant online contacts” prevalent in digital culture.3 I was nevertheless grateful for these “hi bye types,” for it was what eventually led me to

Vandana. These initial days of my fieldwork experiences also reinforced that in my role as ethnographer, it was not I who got to choose my informant; she would choose me.

3 Clive Thompson, “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy,” New York Times. September 7, 2008. Accessed April 7, 2011. .

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January 15, 20164

It’s been almost two weeks since I arrived in Chennai. After many failed attempts to set up a meeting with my primary informants—a group of three male home studio owners who collaborate on projects together—I have a face-to-face meeting. Now that I am in Chennai, they seem apathetic and resistant to the idea of me observing them at work within the studio. I am starting to wonder if their online interactions are simply superficial self- presentation strategies that will never translate into a higher level of real- world engagement.

I have started to interview other home studio owners, but nothing concrete has materialized from these meetings either. Surplus talent and low demand have created cutthroat politics in terms of securing commercial projects among self-taught musicians and sound producers within the city. I am not surprised that many of these studio musicians and producers guard their territory zealously. Others appear insecure about me observing their self-learned recording methods. I am close to exhausting my list of potential home studio leads.

It’s been a little more than a month since Chennai’s deluge. Rahman is performing live after a hiatus to raise funds for Chennai’s flood victims. To honor flood victims, popular female playback singer from the 1990s, Pop Shalini, and her best friend, Bhavatharini, have recently released their original composition, “The Rain Song,” on YouTube. They have invited me to observe the making of a mash-up5 for Valentine’s Day early next month. Although Bhavatharini has her own home studio set up in her apartment (Figure 3-1), a local male sound producer who owns a small-scale recording studio will assist them with recording, mixing, and mastering the final track. But that’s almost a month away!

4 Hereafter, all blocked quotations preceded by date are to be read as fieldnote entries.

5 A mash-up is a creative cover which requires the blending of two or more pre-recorded songs.

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Figure 3-1. Bhavatharini working on an original song with Pop Shalini in her home studio.

I just looked over my list of potential informants. The Mazan sisters— Vandana and Vagu—are the only female studio owners in Chennai. I am apprehensive, even less hopeful to secure a meeting or work with them. My online correspondence has been minimal. Moreover, unlike the male home studio owners who have experience making music for small budget films or commercial projects, the Mazan sisters have only worked on covers of film songs. Apart from their two high-production-value covers, the sisters assist amateur singers with recording covers for their online social media profiles. In a last-ditch effort, I sent Vandana and Vagu a short message on Facebook informing them of my arrival in Chennai. I am hoping they will respond soon.

January 16, 2016

5:30 p.m. Another day has passed and there is still no response form Vandana.

5:55 p.m. Just as I was about to give up hope, Vandana responded on Facebook messenger: “Can we meet tomorrow?” I am excited! I asked her when we can meet. I am waiting for her response.

January 17, 2017

I thought to myself “Do I still have an appointment with the Mazan sisters today?” So, I decided to call at 1:30 p.m. Vagu answered brusquely: “Call the other number. Speak to Vandana.” I dialed the other mobile number. Vandana answered: “Let’s meet on Monday around 3:30 p.m. I will call and confirm the time, ok?” she emphasized this twice.

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January 18, 2016

1:00 p.m. It’s Monday afternoon and I have a feeling the Mazan sisters, like the male studio owners, are blowing me off. I am supposed to meet the sisters at 3:30 p.m., but Vandana still has not confirmed our appointment.

1:20 p.m. I just called Vandana and she said: “We were out of town few days back. I have to wash clothes. Can you come in the evening around six o’clock? Seven, actually will be better,” she quickly postponed our meeting. I am convinced she is trying to blow me off. But I want to at least have a face-to-face encounter before giving up. Vandana knows full well that it will take me more than an hour to drive from the northern part of the city into the suburbs. I responded coolly, careful not to sound desperate: “Sure, no problem. I’ll be there at seven! Where would you like me to meet you?” She was caught off-guard by my undeterred persistence. After a few seconds of silence slip by and she finally yielded: “Hmm ok, then, come to our studio.”

During my online preliminary research, I learned the Mazan sisters worked out of two studios called D-Studio6—one in Velachery and the other in Valsaravakkam. As I spoke to Vandana, I looked at the google map on my laptop screen as (Figure 3-2).

Figure 3-2. Google Map depicting the Mazan’s D-studios in Valasaravakkam and Velachery.

6 “D-Studio” was named after Dhivyaraja, their father.

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“Which one? Velachery?” I enquired. “No, no, that’s another one. Come to Valasaravakkam,” she says matter-of-factly. I verified the address, and hurriedly scribbled down directions on a piece of paper.

6:00 p.m. I call for a cab and I’m on my way to meet the Mazan sisters for the first time.

7:30 p.m. Traffic was horrendous tonight. An hour and a half later, I have arrived in Valasaravakkam!

Valasaravakkam is a residential suburban area, fifteen kilometers from the heart of Chennai city. During the day, alleys in the area are abuzz with frenetic activity.

Vendors call out the names of vegetables and fruits in Tamil in the hopes that people rushing past might stop by their stall. Even the local stray dog scurries along; he only stops at the tea or coffee stalls if a magnanimous customer offers him a cookie.

Passersby chance upon: the glorious sight of beautifully arranged pyramids of fresh fruit, the fragrance of fresh flowers, and the sounds and smells of sizzling samosas, pakoras and bajjis7 from local eateries like Murugan Idli Shop and Data Udipi Hotel.

Some of these eateries would soon become some of my local haunts with Vandana.

These alleys, also, would soon become the pathways I would traverse almost every day in the months ahead (Figure 3-3).

7 Fried South Indian snacks typically accompanied by hot milk tea and coffee.

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Figure 3-3. Valasaravakkam fruit and vegetable market by alleys (left) and local eateries on the main road (center and right). Photos by author.

Between the 1940s and 1990s, Valasaravakkam lay on the fringes of Kodambakkam,

Saligramam, Vadapalani—the hub for Tamil cinema’s filming and recording studios:

A.V.M., Vijaya Vauhini Studios, and Prasad Labs. Post-decentralization, Prasad Labs transformed into Prasad Academy; it offers diploma courses to aspiring film artists and serves as a filming site for Tamil films, television soap operas, and Airtel Super

Singer—Chennai’s popular music reality show. Today, Valasaravakkam and neighboring vicinities—located on what were once the fringes of mainstream film industry production—are dotted with small-scale recording studios (Figure 3-4).

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Figure 3-4. Google Map depicting some of the small-scale recording studios in Valasaravakkam

Within these privately-owned small-scale and home recording studios, amateur- turned-self-taught musicians and sound producers make singles, albums, advertisements, jingles, and covers; those with professional connections and advanced skills have even acquired work as sub-contractors for mainstream film music production.

Over the last decade, a studio scene has developed around the supporting network of self-taught musicians, sound producers, and music industry players who “have overlapping and mutually reinforcing economic, social and geographic components.8

This is a local Indian manifestation that reinforces Chris Gibson’s general argument that recording studios rely on their locations and the supply of musicians to provide a

8 Florida and Jackson, 2010:318 in Allan Watson, Cultural Production in and Beyond the Recording Studio, (New York: Routledge, 2015), 89.

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stimulating environment for the music scene.9 Self-taught musicians and sound producers within these locations have carved out a socio-cultural space for cover production and other small commercial projects. More skilled and well-connected self- taught musicians and sound producers frequently travel from Valasaravakkam into the city to explore the eclectic global sonorities that metropolitan Chennai has to offer. Their connections and exposure to a wide range of music styles has facilitated their entry into mainstream cinema as subcontractors. Their professional accomplishments speak to how these musicians from the margins of Chennai city have gradually gained entry into film music production, over the last decade.

In comparison to the musicians and producers within the city who vie for the most prestigious projects and deal with cutthroat politics on a daily basis, self-taught musicians and sound producers within the suburbs appear to have established stronger personal and professional networks. Suburban freelance musicians and sound producers frequently rely on their social capital or their ability to work collaboratively; they “draw from the quality and structure of their relations with other actors in order to pursue individual objectives.”10 They share similar values, attitudes, aesthetic sensibilities, practices, and economic frameworks. Local tea and coffee stalls, and restaurants like Data Udipi Hotel in Valasaravakkam, serve as social spaces where self-

9 Chris Gibson, “Recording Studios: Relational Spaces of Creativity in the City.” Built Environment 31 (3), 192-207.

10 H. Bathelt and J. Glückler, “Resources in Economic Geography,” Environment and Planning A 37:1555.

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taught musicians and sound producers “hang out,” build networks, and exchange personal and professional experiences.

First Visit to D-Studio, Valasaravakkam

My fieldnote entry from January 18, 2016, describes my first visit to the Mazan sisters’ studio. As I waited for Vandana to greet me outside her studio in the ill-lit, secluded alleys, my cab driver that night, like most male auto rickshaw11 drivers I would encounter throughout the course of my fieldwork, expressed concern for my safety as a woman navigating public spaces on my own. Such forms of concern among Tamil men for a woman’s safety are not uncommon; these men frequently take it upon themselves to be protectors of a woman’s modesty (payirppu) and chastity (kaṟupu).

January 18, 2016

7:40 p.m. Vandana’s directions from Data Udipi Hotel led us through a narrow, ill-lit street, and into a cul-de-sac. I located the address she provided among apartments and houses; a house with a fresh coat of white paint lay enshrouded in darkness. I dialed Vandana’s mobile phone, but there was no response. A woman who appeared to be house help walked past the gate. She engaged in raucous conversation with two lecherous middle-aged men who trailed behind her. I asked if Vandana was at home. “Eenaku teriyathu. Ulle kaelunge,” (I don't know. Make inquiries inside) she responds angrily. I then repeated my question to the two burly men. One hopped on his motor cycle and rode away in a huff. The other leaned on railing of the staircase which led to the second floor of the house. He shook his head vigorously, waved his hand, and curtly dismissed me: “Kīḻē kaelluṅkaḷ” (Make enquiries downstairs). My cab driver looked worried: “I’m not going to leave you here alone. I’ll wait until your friend arrives,” he says in Tamil.

I dialed Vandana’s number again. A young girl in her late 20s, dressed in a yellow t-shirt and jeans approached the house on a steel-grey moped. She parked her bike in a corner and hopped off with a polythene bag. “Vandana? Hi, I’m Nina” I introduced myself. “Hi! Hello!” she says in excitement. She embraced me like a long-lost friend. “When did you get

11 An auto rickshaw is a three-wheeled motorized urban means of transport similar to a tuk-tuk found in east Asian countries.

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here?” she asked “A few minutes ago. I tried calling you but…” Before I complete my sentence, she said: “Ayyo (Oh no!), I left my phone with Vagu That girl!!! Why did she not pick up?” she said in annoyance.

Vandana led me further into the dark compound. A sturdy wrought iron gate bars a tiny veranda. We walked towards a heavy remodeled insulated wooden door. From the outside, I had envisioned the Mazan sisters working within a home studio setting. As I entered the front door, I realized the entire first floor was their studio. “Do you live upstairs?” I enquired. “No, no. We stay few streets away from here. Studio is rented. Upstairs is also rented by owner; there is gambling, drinking and that kind of indecent stuff happens.”

As we entered a dark room, I was quickly drawn into a sense of familiarity. I recognized parts of the studio and equipment from Vandana’s Facebook photos: the thin purple neon tube lights all around the ceiling, the white faux leather sofa against the wall on the right as we enter (Figure 3-5. right), and at the farthest end of the room, the workstation with its 27-inch iMac monitor, a Yamaha 88 Keyboard, and mixing console, speakers, and a Chinese model talk back mic. On a mic stand close to the workstation stood a Blue Spark mic (Figure 3-5. left).

Figure 3-5. D-Studio Valasaravakkam Workstation at the end of the room (left) and waiting area by studio entrance (right) from D-Studio Facebook page.

I had not envisioned the waiting and control room as one large 400 square foot open room. “You know with the recent cyclone and flooding everything got wet. We had to dry the carpet and rewire all the circuits,” Vandana said apologizing for the musty odor. Vagu emerged from behind a closed door by the workstation. She appeared cross but pretended to be busy; she fidgeted with objects around the workstation. Vagu neither raised her head to acknowledge my presence nor greeted me. Right above her, a single light bulb shone, lighting the workstation.

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I tossed my bag on the white sofa and hoped to settle down on the couch to interview Vandana. But she had other plans. She quickly reached into bag and shoved a small tetra pack of apple juice into my hand. “Here, drink!” she said awkwardly as she thrust it into my hands. Familiar with the custom of offering guests something to eat and drink upon their arrival is typical of any good Indian host, but Vandana’s tone and gawky gesture indicated that she was probably unaccustomed to dealing with guests on a regular basis. It appeared she wanted to be rid of such formalities. In the blink of an eye, she guided me toward the workstation, “Come, sit here,” she patted the seat in front of the keyboard. “Play something. Sing something.” Then it dawned on her that she knew so little about me. “Actually, what do you do?” she said. Vagu’s ears perked up and she joined us by the workstation to study me carefully.

I handed them my newly-printed business cards and talked briefly about my musical background. I explained my intentions to work with them. Vagu’s eyes widened with amazement and suspicion: “Wow, you’ve worked with all these famous people! You should research them. Not us! Don’t waste your time with us. We are nobody!” I took a deep breath and said “Yes, but it was much easier for Bhavatharini and Reihana to become musicians. Don’t you make music too? I’ve never ever met any young girls in Chennai who work within the studio as sound producers. This is fantastic! Isn’t your story, the struggles, and joys you experienced important?” Vagu’s eyes lit up. Vandana took that as a cue to tell their story.

Studio as a Space for Storytelling and Socializing

In a recent Facebook post containing the blurb of her forthcoming publication,

‘Storytime in India: Wedding Songs, Victorian Tales, and Ethnographic Experience,’

Helen Meyers writes “Stories are the backbone of ethnographic research. During fieldwork subjects describe their lives through their stories. Afterword ethnographers come home from their journeys with stories of their own about their experience in the field.”12 Similarly, Jeff Todd Titon observes that it is through informants’ lives that we have a means of “knowing people making music.”13 And Jane Sugarman suggests “only

12 Helen Meyer’s’ Facebook page, accessed 15, May 2018. https://www.facebook.com/helen.meyers. 104?ref=br_rs.

13 Jeff T. Titon, “Knowing Fieldwork,” in Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology, ed. Gregory F. Barz and Timothy J. Cooley (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 87-100.

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through a detailed appraisal of the lived experience of gender we can understand the power of musical performance to shape that experience.”14 The rest of this chapter is my re-telling of Vandana’s story, as she described it that evening with the studio.

January 18, 2016

We were seated at the D-Studio workstation in Valasaravakkam. A single light shone above us like a spotlight; there was darkness all around.

My eyes rested on a four-foot black and white framed photograph taken in a photographer’s studio (Figure 3-6). The photo was of an elderly couple dressed in traditional clothes, emphasizing their nadar caste status. “Are they your grandparents?” I asked Vandana. That one question was all that was required for her to take center stage and unfold her life’s story.

As she began to talk, now, and throughout the course of the evening, I was drawn into the detail and vividness of her narrative. It was fluid, precise, and it was so well-delivered that she must have told it many times before. As she continued, I couldn’t help but marvel at her skill and charisma as an entertainer.

“Yes, they’re my grandparents. Appa’s (Dad’s) mom and dad. My mother was a brahmin, a Palagad brahmin (upper caste) and dad is a nadar (lower caste).15 Dad is from Madurai, exactly from the village Kombai near Theni district. But we were brought up here, in Chennai, only.”

14 Jane C. Sugarman, Engendering Song – Singing and Subjectivity at Prespa Albanian Weddings (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), 33

15 See footnote on caste system in Chapter 1, pg. 41.

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Figure 3-6. A four-foot black and white photograph of Vandana’s grandparents in the studio. Photo by author.

Vandana explained that when her parents fell in love, notions of caste purity and segregation were so pronounced in the village that the couple had to elope to Madras in the 1980s. Over the next few years, the couple resided in Mylapore, a predominantly brahmin vicinity in Madras, where their three daughters were born. The girls attended

Lady Sivaswami Ayyar Girls’ Higher Secondary School. Both at home and at school, the three daughters were inculcated with upper caste brahmin religious and cultural values.

Reflecting on her formative musical influences, Vandana acknowledged her mother’s support and encouragement in the development of her talent:

You know, my mother would hold my hand and take me to all the school competitions. She would stand in the back of the hall in a corner, watch me sing, clap for me. She was my biggest fan. She supported and encouraged

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me so much; really, the main reason I am a musician today is only because of her.16

When Vandana was only ten-years old, her mother died of cancer.

She died all of a sudden; no one knew she was sick. She suffered so much in the end. She was such a sweet, beautiful woman. I can’t understand why it had to happen to her. When she died, my dad was holding her in his arms. He was crying like anything. You know, my parents, they loved each other so much; I have never seen a love like that. Their love was so pure. I have never seen anyone love someone so much. They showed so much love and affection; he would kiss her on the cheeks in front of us.17

The loss of their mother came as a shock and had a significant impact on their family. Their father, overcome with grief, began to adopt an oppressive stance; he reminded his three daughters every day that “men are evil” and made them promise they would never marry.18 From what Vandana told me, it appeared that their father was keen to maintain the cohesiveness of the family at all costs. She disclosed that after the three girls completed high school, he enrolled them in “correspondence degrees”

(distance education programs) at the university: the elder sister, Vidya, completed a

Master of Commerce degree, Vandana completed a Bachelor’s in literature, and Vagu had enrolled in a bachelor’s degree in commerce, but discontinued her education. “You know, my father wanted us to become government school teachers after we got our degree, that way we could have a permanent job, a regular salary, and after we retired, we would get a pension.”19 According to Vandana, the distance education program was his way of ensuring his daughters were constantly under his purview.

16 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, January 18, 2016.

17 Ibid.

18 Given that marriage is a crucial rite of passage in Indian society, an oath like this is highly anomalous.

19 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, January 18, 2016.

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“He never wanted us to mingle with people and make friends,”20 she said bitterly.

Socializing with friends meant incurring unnecessary expenditure; it could also potentially lead to romantic relationships, resulting in marriage. What Vandana did not perceive, or chose not to reveal, was that their father may have foreseen the difficulty in finding suitable grooms for his three daughters because of their social background.

Even if the girls were to fall in love and marry the man of their choice, their father could potentially still have to deal with exorbitant wedding expenditures and possibly the still- thriving tradition of the dowry system.

During the 1980s, economic hardships compelled their father to start a live band— Dhivyaraja Shruthi Light Music Orchestra. Later, in the early 2000s, not wanting their family name, “Masanam,” to reveal their lower caste identity, which could possibly hinder business, the family decided to change their name. Vandana explained how this transition from the name of Masanam to Mazan occurred:

Masanam is a very very comedy thing! Thatha's (grandfather's) name was Masanam, which means Shiva in the crematory ground. So, when Vidya started marketing for our online website for the gigs she cut it and made it Mazan; she did all the paperwork for the name change. That’s the thing. And we also decided to follow that.21

The Mazan family hired amateur and self-taught musicians to accompany them for wedding reception gigs. Vandana continued to emphasize her father’s authoritarian presence. When the girls performed in public with the troupe, Vandana emphasized how their father wanted to avoid any possibility of his daughters being perceived as

20 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, January 18, 2016.

21 Ibid.

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attractive or garner potential marriage proposals: “he made us dress up like boys. I hate those long, big, bulky, bulky coats” (Figure 3-7)

Figure 3-7. Vagu (left) and Vandana (right) preparing to perform with Dhivyaraja Shruthi at a wedding reception. Photos from Vandana selfie’s collection shared with author.

Studio as a Space for Gaining Musical and Technological Skills

Five years ago, when wedding gigs failed to bring in a steady income for the family, Vandana explained:

My dad had this crazy idea; he wanted to make a studio. He sold all our mother’s jewelry. We knew nothing about studios; we didn’t even know how to operate a computer properly. We argued with him a lot, but my dad was very stubborn. Finally, Vagu agreed and so we started watching and downloading YouTube videos and read blogs.22

Vagu who had been listening quietly during the interview added “Yah, at the time in the

2000s, there was no mobile phone and tablets. We would watch YouTube videos on the computer. I downloaded and copied them on CDs and watched again and again; that’s how I learned studio building, sound recording, and guitar. Later, when we had data

22 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, January 18, 2016.

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connection on the phones, we started watching videos on our mobile phones.”23 Vagu’s comments regarding access to mobile information is reminiscent of Oldenburg’s observations that the Internet serves as an alternate pedagogical space for young DIY learners who otherwise lack a place for formal learning or apprenticeship.24

Unlike most young women musicians who typically take on the traditional gendered role of singer, here were two young women in their late twenties, who were not only self-taught musicians and sound producers, but also prolific learners. They had learned how to build—and had built—two home recording studios, and later two small- scale studios, all on their own. Only a handful of mostly upper-class women, whose connections in the film music industry had enabled them to explore studio roles, had transcended the traditional role of singer. Moreover, in these instances, these women were typically assisted or guided by male sound producers and mentors. During my research, however, I began to observe that music-making for many of these privileged women was only permitted as a dalliance; family responsibilities and notions of female respectability limited their pursuit of a career in music production. Unlike these women, economic constraints and exceptional circumstances enabled the middle-class, mixed- caste Mazan sisters to explore non-traditional male studio roles.

Developing a recording studio’s acoustic design and space involves an intimate knowledge of how sound is transmitted within that space. “You built the studio all on your own???” I asked to clarify. “Yah, we’re feminists. Our father brought us up like

23 Vagu Mazan, interview with author, January 18, 2016.

24 Ray Oldenburg The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community, (New York: Marlowe & Company, 1999).

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boys, so we learned how to do these things by ourselves,” said Vandana. Vagu added,

“We didn’t have money to get people to build it, so we did it ourselves. We’re the only two crazy girls to do these kinds of works.”25 The sisters learned not only through online videos, but also through first-hand experience. Vandana added:

Yah, we experimented a lot. The first time we made the studio in the bedroom, we bought rolls of material from a waste [recycled material] shop by the roadside. After we hung it up on the walls, we started itching all over. Later we found out the material contained fiberglass... Then, the first time we recorded we didn’t know we had to save the tracks and we lost everything…We struggled a lot with the wire connections. We learned from experience that it has to be done in a particular order; otherwise you’ll hear the buzzing sound in the recording.26

Vagu interjected:

Yah, our first studio was at home. We had only a hall (living room), a kitchen, and a bedroom; it was basically a single bedroom apartment. Four of us used the hall and kitchen for our personal space and we converted the bedroom into the studio. When we started getting clients they would have to pass through the hall and the kitchen—our personal living space—to get to the studio. We needed more privacy, so we relocated the studio to the living room area. In the bedroom we didn’t have a voice booth. We built a voice booth in the living room. It was a rented apartment, so we couldn’t build a false ceiling. Instead, we created a wooden crisscross grid, added plywood on top of it, and within the gaps we put Thermocol (Styrofoam) and all sorts of padding material. We attached the crisscross grid by a loft; by loft I mean that there was sufficient space for me to crouch there. So that’s how we constructed the home studio in our living room.27

Such “sensory-somatic engagement”28 with material objects, the embodied knowledge of trial by error, forms the learning process of the Mazan sisters and other self-taught musicians and sound producers in Chennai.

26 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, January 18, 2016.

27 Vagu Mazan, interview with author, January 18, 2016.

28 Anna Portisch “The Craft of Skillful Learning: Kazakh Women’s Everyday Craft Practices in Western Mongolia” in “Making Knowledge,” special issue, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16 (2010): S62-S79.

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The sisters constructed their first two home studios within their apartment in

Mylapore. Vandana told me that as clients began to frequent their studio, conservative neighbors objected to their profession as popular musicians; they complained it was ruining the respectability and reputation of the locality. It became necessary for the sisters to move the studio out of their domestic environment to earn their family living.

Feminist scholars have theorized a “third space epistemology”29 that appears when events in the lives of women like Vandana and Vagu compel them to move into the public sphere and appropriate traditional male roles and spaces to generate income. In this case, Dhivyaraja Mazan had commissioned Vagu and Vandana to build both D- studios (named after him). The Mazan sisters’ experiments and experiences with technology and studio building had instilled a certain degree of confidence and empowerment in the sisters.

Studio as a Space for Negotiation

According to Vandana, their father continued to exercise his authority; he reminded them of their dependence on him. “You’re nothing without the studio,” he constantly prodded. She talked about how he continually monitored their whereabouts; any move toward independence was seen as an act of subversion, and therefore severely punishable. In the studio, he insisted on controlling all client negotiations and interactions. Vandana began to feel stifled. The studio replicated the power structures at home; it represented a hegemonic site for mandatory unpaid labor:

29 Meredith E. Abarca, Voices in the Kitchen: Views of Food and the World from Working- Class Mexican and Mexican American Women. (Texas A&M University Press, 2006), 148.

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He would stand next to us in the studio all the time. We were like machines sitting in front of the computer. We sat quietly, did all the work, and said nothing to the client. My dad was the one who talked to them. He didn’t know how to handle the clients properly. I was so frustrated. I would go crazy. I couldn’t live like that anymore. One day, I took Rs. 10,000 ($200 USD) and ran away from home. I went to a hostel. Then my dad filed a police complaint and found me. He wanted me to come home. He kept telling me I had to come home. He kept saying, “You’re nothing without the studio.” At that time, I went home because I didn’t have any money. I told I’ll go back only if I could handle the studio and studio clients by myself. This was the first time I ran from home.30

This was a major turning point in Vandana’s life. For the first time, she realized she had the power to negotiate, which enabled her to gain much wider control over studio space and production. Her valuable live performance and studio skills were required to bring in a regular income to support the family. Her father implicitly accepted his dependence on her. It was her enactment of agency, this foretaste of independence, that emboldened her to negotiate and test the limits of her freedom on multiple occasions: “I ran from home many times after that. At least once every year,” she admitted proudly. “And each time my dad brought me back, and I had to return because

I had no money.” Although Vandana’s confidence in her ability was building, she was still economically dependent on her father.

Vandana’s appropriation of the studio allowed her to carve out a creative, professional space for herself. The dynamics within the studio gradually changed; her father no longer hovered over her and she experienced the freedom to improve her recording and musical skills by creating covers of popular Tamil film songs. Covers serve a pedagogical function; for most self-taught musicians and sound producers in

30 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, January 18, 2016.

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Chennai covers facilitate the development of musical and technological skills necessary to master the art of film song composition and the art of recording, both which lead to careers in film music production. Recorded covers uploaded on social media have also provided amateur and self-taught musicians and sound producers the means to gain recognition and wider visibility. In fact, my first encounter and interaction with Vandana was online, after I stumbled upon her first recorded cover of a popular film song “New

York Nagaram” (New York City), uploaded on Facebook.

As observed earlier, the Mazan sisters’ “New York Nagaram,” a tribute to A.R.

Rahman was produced under pseudonyms. As Vandana talked about taking over the studio, I was reminded of their first few covers: “So I’m guessing there’s a story behind why you used different names for your first cover?” I enquired curiously. I soon learned that cover production served as yet another instance for negotiation and enacting agency in their path towards gaining independence from patriarchal authority:

Yah, every morning I would go to the studio. I couldn’t stay at home and do nothing. I have to keep doing something all the time. If nothing was going on in the studio, if there was no clients that day, I started making my own music, I started experimenting with covers in secret. I did not want my dad to know what I was doing because he would not allow us to anything other than studio works and the wedding gigs. I wanted to do these extra things for myself. I wanted to see how it would be to make a cover and put it online. I was telling him that I was learning how to record and make tracks for our works. One day Vagu came to the studio and she saw what I was doing. She got very angry and said she was going to tell dad. So, I tried to make her calm and I included her in the project. We started making the cover by ourselves and I put it on YouTube and Facebook. I had to create a fake account with that name, so he wouldn’t come to know. That’s why in our first cover you will see our names are like that.31

31 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, January 18, 2016.

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Vagu, who was listening quietly, chimed in “Yah, this stupid girl, she one day left her Facebook account open on the computer. When our father came to the studio he saw it and started asking what it was, and we had to tell him everything.”32 While

Vandana had gained access to the studio as well as the freedom to interact with studio clients, creating their own music was still considered an act of subversion. Her father was outraged and reminded her that she was “nothing without the studio,” a threat he continued to use whenever his authority was challenged. If earlier Vandana had negotiated for freedom to control creative space, she now negotiated for the freedom to be creative within that space. Once again, she skillfully leveraged her studio skills to align her self-promotion goals with her father’s interest in maintaining family unity and expanding the business; Vandana argued that featuring the studio on the credits of their high-production-value covers would attract more clients and boost business.

Studio as a Space for Collaboration

The Mazan sisters’ covers attracted attention from like-minded self-taught musicians and sound producers online; the covers enabled the sisters to network:

When I put the videos online, people started contacting me like anything. I wasn’t expecting that so many people would “like” our videos on Facebook. Nowadays with social media we can make many contacts. Anyway, slowly, slowly we started to make very good contacts. There’s this guy Achu, his name is Achutha Kumar, but we all call him “Achu.” He is a drummer, a self- taught musician only, but he has a lot of contacts; he knows a lot of very big, known people. He wanted to collaborate with us, but at first dad didn’t allow us. He told we could not perform with all these people because we don’t know them and they will be very bad and we will get cheated. So we decided to form Project Triplet—just me, Vagu, and Achu; that’s all. And like that we started to make and film cover videos in the studio itself (Figure 3- 8). Through Achu we came to know Prabhu, a photographer and

32 Vagu Mazan, interview with author, January 18, 2016.

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videographer; he is such a nice person. He helped us a lot. So that way we didn’t have to go out; our contacts started coming to our studio.33

Figure 3-8. Project Triplet’s cover of Michael Jackson’s ‘You rock my world.’ Screenshot from YouTube cover video.

Recording and filming covers as Project Triplet within the studio enabled the

Mazan sisters to present a professional image to attract more clients and increase their studio revenue. Building a reputation and trust is essential for freelance musicians.

Moreover, Achu’s connections within the live performance scene provided opportunities for the girls to perform with his contemporary fusion bands, Pranetra and AD and the

Band, and bring in an additional income; their father soon approved of them working with a network of trusted contacts. For the Mazan sisters, collaborating with Achu represented a gradual move towards professional and personal independence.

33 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, January 18, 2016.

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Vandana chuckled as she continued to describe her circuitous route toward greater independence. In the following excerpt, Vandana explained how she managed to save up to buy a bike (again, in secret), creating more time to focus on creative endeavors, which led them closer to financial freedom:

Oh, and then one more thing. So, before we met Achu when we were only doing studio works, we would have to travel to Velachery studio. For that sometimes I will have to take two busses. It would take so much time waiting and waiting in the bus stop. So what I did then was I would tell dad that clients came late. So if the recording was three hours I would tell dad we finished in one hour. So that way I would keep some of the money from the recording and I collected it and hid it in the loft in a pillowcase. Then one day I bought the second-hand bike (moped) and we asked the neighbor if we could keep it there. So from then onwards we did not have to waste time taking buses; we started reaching the studio in half an hour or even 45 minutes. And we started to meet other people. But one day when I was taking the bike to go to the studio, dad saw me. But by then we started to meet a lot of people and we came to know Achu and all and we started to get so many works outside. We also did a huge project for Makkal TV.34

The increased networking made possible through having a moped, enabled the sisters to secure several lucrative projects. In October 2015, Makkal TV, a local Tamil television station, commissioned the sisters to compose and perform a set of original songs for one of their music programs. The sisters composed and pre-recorded the songs; they drew on their rapidly expanding networks to help them film for the show. If

Vandana had previously negotiated for control over studio space and production, she now desired to have a certain degree of professional autonomy. For their father, however, the Makkal TV project had nothing to do with the studio; their newfound success and fame was starting to threaten family stability and taking on the project was non-negotiable. This time, both Vandana and Vagu ran away from home; without his

34 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, January 18, 2016.

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knowledge they lived and worked on the project in their Velachery studio. Without regular clients, the girls’ living conditions grew abysmal. Their father was dependent on them for their studio skills to earn the family income. Likewise, the sisters were still largely dependent on him to provide a steady flow of clients. Eventually, it was their mutually-dependent economic relationship that prompted negotiations yet again.

Through negotiation the father and older sister, who were previously excluded from the project, now had prominent positions as lead singers. The Makkal TV project, which was initially seen as divisive, became, through mutual need, a way to maintain family unity, as well as gain fame and recognition in the media.

Studio as a Sacred Space

Yah, just before we got the Makkal TV project I would pray a lot. At that time we did not have much work in the studio, so every day I did puja. I am a very spiritual person. I prayed a lot to get the Makkal TV project, you know. I prayed to Baba. I made a promise that if we got the project I will shave my head. Wait, let me show you…[Vandana opens folders on the studio Mac]. See how long my hair was then (Figure 3-9 left). Then, when we got the project, I shaved my head (Figure 3-9. right).35

35 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, January 18, 2016.

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Figure 3-9. Vandana’s photos of her tonsured head as evidence for her firm faith. Photos from Vandana’s selfie collection shared with author.

Vandana confessed that in being away from her bickering sisters and oppressive father, the studio was much more than a functional space for generating a family income; it was a spiritual space, as well. As historian Stephen Putnam Hughes observes, the early history of recording studios in India film music involved adapting traditional devotional Hindu rites and practices:

Each recording session was begun by making a ritual invocation to a presiding deity whose image or statue was installed within the studio. Brahmin ritual specialists were brought into the studio to perform the relevant puja ceremonies. The recording sessions themselves would have been performed worshipfully in front of the deity. And after the session was complete, there would be a presentation of gifts and honorary regalia to the performer.36

36Gregory. D Booth and Bradley Shope, ed., More than Bollywood: Studies in Indian Popular Music. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 127. .

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Since the late 1980s and 1990s, my own recording experiences attest to the presence of religious iconography of all faiths within Chennai’s studios. Projects and recording sessions that I participated in were always preceded with a short ritual or prayer to ensure the success of the recording session or the project. However, until I conducted research with the Mazan sisters, never had I encountered a studio that so closely embodied the aesthetic of a domestic Hindu puja room. Religious iconography adorns the porch (Figure 3-10).

Figure 3-10. Hindu religious iconography. Photo by author.

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In addition, the recording of a male voice chanting “Om namah Shivaya” (Praise be to

Lord Shiva) sung to the accompaniment of a tanpura plays on loop on the porch when recordings are not in session (Figure 3-10).

Example 3-1. Transcription of the chant “Om namah Shivaya” on loop played on the porch at D-Studio Valasaravakkam. Author’s transcription

Behind the workstation, in a room that once appeared to be part of the bathroom, is an image of Pillaiyar or Ganesha (Figure 3-11). Lord Ganesha, the elephant god, is known for his wisdom; he is also patron of the arts and of science, and is worshiped at the beginning of any auspicious project with the intention to ward away all obstacles from one’s path.

Figure 3-11. Image of Pillaiyar in a room behind the workstation in D-studio Valasaravakkam. Photo by author.

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Surprised to see the statue of a deity in the bathroom, I questioned, “What is Pillaiyar doing in the bathroom?” Vandana laughed heartily and explained how she came into possession of the statue:

You know, by our old apartment in Velachery, I think some neighbors who were Muslim or Christian threw out Pillaiyar. I found this by garbage. How could they throw out the statue of God like that by the trash? So, I took it home and every day I did puja. We had to move to this house in Valasaravakkam because people in that area did not like that we were musicians who sing film songs. So when we came off to Valasaravakkam, I brought the statue with me.

She continued to explain how she prformed her daily puja in the studio each morning:

Every morning I will be the first one to wake up. After brushing my teeth and changing my clothes I wouldn’t even drink coffee or tea or anything; I would just come off to the studio. I couldn’t be sitting in the house all the time. Vidya, or dad, or Vagu will always be fighting or irritating me, so I came to studio. I will do puja here every morning for an hour; it was so peaceful and calming. I would pray that we would get lots of projects. I prayed that business will go well and we will not suffer.

You know, one day after we had built the studio here some religious man came to this place and he was telling that there is something bad here, something bad happened, and that nothing will go well in this place. He said there is some bad energy in this place. He told to move away from here. But what can we do? We just moved few months back and had lease. At that time we can’t just go away from here. So I brought the image and kept it here and did all these religious things. I used to do puja to take away the evil eye. I prayed to get the Makkal TV project. And after we got the project life became so busy. I don’t have time to do puja now. I want to do puja again every day.37

The sight of Pillaiyar in a bathroom initially struck me as profane. However, as I listened to Vandana talk about her spiritual experiences in the light of patriarchal

37 Author’s fieldnotes, January 18, 2016.

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oppression, I was reminded of feminist analyses of gendered sacred spaces, and how women’s narratives and agency within these spaces can counter patriarchal authority.38

As Vandana talked about her personal and musical trajectory that evening, describing her struggle with patriarchal authority and the strides she made through negotiation, I was reminded of feminist third space scholar Chela Sandoval’s observation that women are sometimes confronted by the “process of taking and using whatever is necessary and available in order to negotiate, confront, or speak to power— and then moving on to new forms, expressions and ethos when necessary as a method for survival.”39 Vandana had not only appropriated the recording studio—a male space for socio-economic purposes—but she had also carved out a space, a third space, for creativity and sociality that became a haven for spiritual expression that was uniquely hers. The inherent tensions within D-studio—the juxtaposition between traditional dichotomies of masculine and feminine, domestic and professional, spiritual and profane spaces—attests to how women come to occupy spaces and channel them with their inner spiritual energy and private religious practices.

After Vandana recounted the story of her life, there were a few moments of silence. “I talked so much. Why don’t you sing and play something for us?” I sang and accompanied myself on the keyboard. Vagu was mesmerized and said, “Wow, you can really play the piano! We should collaborate and start a band.” I had earned Vagu’s trust! “Absolutely! If you want to learn western music theory, too, let me know. I want to help you girls!” Vagu is excited!

38 Diana Agrest, “Architecture from Without: Body, Logic and Sex.” Gender Space Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction. ed Jane Rendell, Barbara Penner, and Iain Borden, (London: Routledge, 2000), 358-70.

39 Adela C. Licona, Zines in Third Space: Radical Cooperation and Borderlands Rhetoric, (New York: University of New York Press, 2012).

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I look at the time; it’s past 9:30 p.m. I call an Uber; it will take me an hour into the city.

In the cab I cannot help but reflect on how Vandana’s middle-class, “mixed- caste,” self-taught cover musician/sound producer status marks her as a liminal identity. Her personal story, her acts of overt rebellion, her enactment of agency at the personal and professional level have led her on a different path than most women her age, and social background. Her story and the work are noteworthy because they represent the choices she made. In her performance—as a singer/sound producer/composer—in her use of language—Tanglish, a portmanteau word for a mixture of Tamil and English—in her style of dressing, there are elements that converge and contradict; clearly, she inhabits the margins in every way. I caught glimpses of her affable personality, her warmth, her sense of creativity, and her playfulness. She is an entertainer! As Vandana reflects on her life and career approaching her 30s, her self- awareness and self-fashioning of her musical persona are palpable. Vandana has probably told her story multiple times, but each telling is unique.40

First Visit D-Studio, Velachery—“The World’s Smallest Studio”

Almost ten days after my first visit to the Mazan sisters’ Valasaravakkam studio,

Vandana called to inform me about a recording session in their Velachery studio. The following section of my fieldnotes begins with my journey from the heart of the city to D-

Studio, Velachery, followed by my description of what Vandana referred to as “the world’s smallest studio.”

January 27, 2016

Vandana called at 2:30 p.m. “Nina, there’s a recording in Velachery studio. Nothing big, it’s just a cover. I just thought I’d tell you. You want to come? I’ll send you directions. Come fast, ok? The recording is at 3:00 p.m.” After she hung up, I thought to myself “At 3:00 p.m.? It’s impossible for me to reach Velachery in half an hour. I’ll just have to miss the first part of the recording session.”

I hailed an autorickshaw immediately. We whizzed past heavy traffic in the northern part of the city. As we headed south, the autorickshaw driver, who was unfamiliar with the southern part of the city, made a few wrong turns. We stopped to ask for directions. As we approached the Indian Institute of

40 Author’s fieldnotes, January 18, 2016.

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Technology, a major landmark on Gandhi Nagar Road, I directed him to the studio with the directions Vandana had given me.

More than an hour and a half after I left home, we finally arrived on an eerily quiet, narrow lane dotted with tiny shops, houses, and apartment buildings. On a bright yellow painted second floor balcony with bright blue windows, a landlord dressed in a white baniyan and dark blue lungi,41 yawned and scratched his arm pit languorously, reigning over his tenants on the first floor. His tenants were working industriously below. On the left side of the building, was a dry-cleaning facility, a space that measures exactly ten-by- ten feet. On the right side, equal in dimension, was a studio with a sign that read: “D-Studio Audio Recording Suite: Your Ultimate Music Solution” (Figure 3-12).

Figure 3-12. Vandana poses outside D-Studio Velachery as she welcomes me to “the world’s smallest studio.” Photo by author.

Through the glass window, I saw Vandana seated by a desk. I requested the auto driver to halt. He looked around worried. As I alighted and paid him the fare, he cautioned: “Jākkiratai maa. Yaarna irukkiṟīrkaḷā? Poiye kaelege. Naan vait paanerae” (Be careful child. Is there someone waiting for you? Check. I’ll wait for you). I assured him there was no need to worry and that my friend was waiting for me. Unconvinced, he asked “Yenge?" (Where?). I pointed to the studio “Aadho, aṅkē pāruṅge, ooru kutty reckording studio.” (Over there, there’s a tiny recording studio over there?). He still looks

41 Traditional Tamil male attire.

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concerned and I am reminded that local understandings of recording studios are complex. On the one hand, they represent spaces predominantly for male creativity, yet these mysteriously-hidden locales also signify spaces for female exploitation. “Seri, jākkiratai irru ma,” [Ok, be careful] he says. He left only after Vandana walked out to meet me outside the studio.

Vandana greeted me cheerfully at the entrance of D-studio.: “Hi, Nina! Welcome to the world’s smallest studio! I don't think you'll find a smaller studio anywhere else in the world. It is only ten by ten!” she laughed.

Figure 3-13. Workstation at D-Studio Velachery. Photo by author.

As soon as I entered the door, toward the right against the wall stood a small wooden computer desk—the workstation occupied one quarter of the room. Vandana had haphazardly tossed her handbag, phone, and a large lock and bunch of keys on the desk. The workstation comprised a Samsung computer monitor and keyboard along with a Saffire Pro14 Focusrite sound card, and an ordinary microphone for a talkback mic. Two BX5 A speakers stood perched on wooden stands on either side of the table (Figure 3-13). Unlike the Valasaravakkam studio, there was no electric keyboard. The size of the studio and gear suggested the deliverable projects undertaken are voice-dubbing, voice-overs, and cover songs sung to a karaoke track. An A- 4 sized framed photograph of the Mazan sisters’ grandparents lay between the speakers; placed in front of the picture was an offering, a wad of Rs. 10 bills beside the photo frame.

Toward the left of the workstation, another quarter of the room, lay a wooden-framed voice echo chamber partitioned from the rest of the room. A black and white photograph of saint Sai Baba was shoved into the bottom

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right corner of the recording booth glass window of the voice echo chamber; the glass partition of the chamber was anointed with kumkum (a dried paste of vermilion and sandal powder). Porous grey padded acoustic foam lined the inside and outside of the booth as sound proofing. Inside the cubicle, stood an M-Audio Nova microphone shimmering brightly within the pitch darkness of the booth. A pair of headphones hung precariously on the mic stand.

The left half of the ten-by-ten space served as a waiting room with a couch and a passage that led to the voice chamber. The walls were lined with a light gold brocade fabric embossed with motifs of leaves and branches that brightened up the space. Acoustic foam panels covered in a rich gold brocade fabric held together by dark brown frames adorn the walls above the couch.

Below the panels on a couch were two young college students. Vandana introduced us. Arun is in his early twenties. He is a student of Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology located nearby. By his side is his friend Surjith. “Arun is the singer, I’m only here for moral support,” he chuckles. Arun is from the neighboring state of Kerala. He was going to record a classic devotional film song in Malayalam (the regional language spoken in Kerala, also his mother tongue) sung to a drone tack. “The recording is for a competition. It is a closed Facebook group competition for people from my community in Kerala,” he explained. “Ok, go inside" Vandana said abruptly to him. “We shall start the recording.” “Let me drink some water before I go inside that room” said Arun nervously. “Don’t worry, once you go inside that dark room you will never need water ever again!” jokes Vandana. Arun laughs heartily and his nervousness melts away; he is ready to sing (Figure 3-14).

Figure 3-14. Arun right before he walks into the recording booth at D-Studio Velachery. Photo by author.

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Most college students, like Arun, who frequent the studio, make covers for competitions or their social media profiles. The proliferation of small-scale and home recording studios like D-Studio has developed a recorded cover scene for film music.

Successful cover artists have perpetuated the myth that the cover star now has easy access to into mainstream media and film music production. D-Studio’s proximity to the

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campus draws some of India’s brightest young minds and talent (Figure 3-15).

Figure 3-15. D-Studio Velachery’s proximity to the Indian Institute of technology’s campus.

Most clients who frequented D-studio in Velachery were students from IIT. One particular IIT student, Tarun, who was originally from a small town in the north Indian region of Punjab, caught Vandana’s attention. In October 2015, their relationship blossomed into a friendship, and by early 2016 they decided to enter a serious relationship with the intention of marriage; this would require Vandana to break the

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family oath of never marrying. Neither Vandana nor Tarun had any intention of abandoning Vandana’s family after marriage. Tarun, who has always been supportive and encouraging of her career, promised her he would assist her and her family financially if needed. However, when Vandana’s family found out about their relationship, they were outraged and were determined for them to end it. Not only was their family oath violated, but also notions of family cohesion were threatened. The

Mazans accused her of being a traitor, of abandoning them, of exploiting them for her own personal gain.

Vandana Transcends the Studio

Scholars observe that even though studio musicians strive to create and maintain close relationships, egos clash, creating tensions and disputes. Since I had spent a lot of time with the sisters since mid-January, I was accustomed to hearing frequent outbursts, insults, and bickering between Vandana and Vagu. On one occasion, Vagu screamed “Remember, I’m the brain; you’re only the physical manual labor.” Moments like this can be terrifying and emotional neutrality or not reacting is nearly impossible.

Allan Watson observes, “an important emotional implication of studio work is then the suppression of anger and frustration on the part of the studio worker in the name of good working relations.”42 The experiences of the Mazan sisters’ physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing within the studio environment was exacerbated by the environment at home.

In the last three months, Vandana had resorted to various ways to gain personal, professional, and economic freedom from her family. As a live musician, she not only

42 Allan Watson, Cultural Production in and Beyond the Recording Studio (New York: Routledge, 2015), 57.

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performed with her father’s light music troupe at wedding gigs, but she had also built up a reputation for herself as a freelance live and recorded performer within the cover scene. Within the family-owned studio she not only managed studio clients, but also marketed her own recorded career: she composed, sang, and recorded theme songs for a popular Tamil television soap opera Kalyanam Mudhal Kadhal Varai or ‘KMKV’

(2014); she started giving voice lessons to amateur singers (mostly studio clients); and she also earned a regular income from #fametamil, an online livestreaming gig, which required her to perform live renditions of popular Tamil film songs to live audiences.

Outside the family studio, she continued to collaborate with studio and live musicians for individual events, and she started to market herself as a studio playback singer—all to save up for her future with Tarun.

Vandana’s father gave her an ultimatum: break up with Tarun and renounce the individual musical career she had so painstakingly fashioned for herself, or leave the house. Vandana chose to leave the house; this time, she did not return. The following excerpt from my fieldnotes describes how I came to learn of her decision:

April 1, 2016

9:30 a.m. I received a notification from the #fame livestream app; Vandana had rescheduled her live performance from 9:30 p.m. to 10:00 a.m. Perhaps she has a live wedding gig to perform with her family this evening?

10:00 a.m. I signed into #fame. Vandana live-streamed from the streets of Valasaravakkam; she typically performed from within her family-owned studio. I was well-accustomed to her creativity and spontaneity. She mesmerized her audience with an hour-long performance (Figure 3-16).

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Figure 3-16. Vandana’s #fametamil live-stream performance on April 1, 2016. Screenshot from live stream.

11:00 a.m. As soon as she signed out of #fame she called me. “Nina, are you free? Can we talk now?” she said calmly. “Yeah, sure. That was an interesting performance. What made you live-stream outside today?” I asked. “Nina, I quit home, I quit the studio, I quit everything.” “What do you mean? Hey, come on, I know it’s April fool’s day today, you can’t fool me!” I laugh. “No Nina, really! Dad kept telling me again and again that I’m nothing without the studio. He said I cannot survive on my own. He told me I’m stupid. I’m an idiot. I can’t do anything by myself. He and everyone at home have been saying I’m exploiting them and the studio. Today in the morning while I was sleeping, he woke me up and started shouting. He told me to quit Tarun and all my personal works. If I don’t I should get out of the house. I got very angry because of that. I came out of the house, Nina. I got a room also. It’s nearby, a ladies’ hostel. I will never go back home again! I told him I’m leaving. This time don’t drag me back or beg me to come home. I will never come back again. I don’t need you or your studio.”

Conclusion

This chapter described my first face-to-face encounter with the Mazan sisters—it was a crucial site, but just one small part of the journey that would lead me into cover culture. This chapter moved away from typical descriptions of the recording studio as a domain of male creativity to illustrate an empowering tale of how a marginal identity like

Vandana took control of life by speaking to power through a series of negotiations. In

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doing so, she claimed the studio as a creative, social, spiritual, and economic space of her own. Indeed, as her father frequently mentioned, Vandana is “nothing without the studio.” Without the studio, she never would have acquired the valuable professional and social skills, as well as the network required to gain independence as a musician.

When the family and the studio no longer served as a site for autonomy, she transcended the family studio and struck out on her own.

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CHAPTER 4 LIVE PERFORMANCE SPACES: FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIANS NAVIGATING AND NETWORKING WITHIN LIVE PERFORMANCE SPACES

Over the last five years, the Mazan sisters have used their access to the family’s small-scale recording studio to promote online cover production. The covers Vandana uploaded on social media sites brought the sisters greater visibility; they facilitated networking and collaboration with like-minded self-taught musicians and sound producers, both within the studio as well as within live settings. This chapter moves into the realm of live performance spaces for cover performance; it explores three live performance contexts the Mazan sisters navigated—wedding receptions, charity fundraisers, and mall gigs. As I re-trace some of the Mazan sisters’ routes into these performance contexts, I also trace the historical roots of contemporary live performance to the 1970s, a time when light music troupes or orchestras gained popularity as live entertainment at wedding receptions. It was during this period that Usha Uthup, an upper caste (brahmin), self-taught, female singer made it socially acceptable for women to perform popular film music within live settings like clubs and bars, paving the way for contemporary women like Vandana and Vagu to navigate multiple live performance spaces. Since this chapter focuses on the Mazan sisters’ engagements with covers within the live scene, I highlight their involvement with cover bands. I describe their participation within these socio-musical formations, their musical roles, the remuneration they received, and point out some of the benefits and challenges they encountered due to their marginal musical roles and status as self-taught musicians within these live spaces for Tamil film song cover performance.

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Wedding Gigs: From Gattimelam and Light Music Troupes to Live Bands

April 21, 2016

Vandana was just about to sign-out of her daily online live-stream #fametamil performance, when her voice was engulfed by the sounds of a gattimelam.1 Spontaneously, she offered her online viewers a quick glimpse of the traditional ensemble warming up in the greenroom of a kalyana mandapa2 before the ceremony (Figure 4-1). The gattimelam will perform first at the religious ceremony. Vandana and her band have been hired to perform live renditions of Tamil film songs at the wedding reception that follows.

Figure 4-1. Vandana provides her #fame audience with a glimpse of the gattimelam. Author’s recording of Vandana’s #fametamil live stream Screenshot from live- stream.

The sound of the gattimelam is an integral part of any Hindu ritual wedding ceremony.

Scenes and footage in both reel (Figure 4-2. right) and real (Figure 4-2. left) worlds depict traditional gattimelam performers playing the nadaswaram (wind) and the thavil

(percussion) (Figure 4-2).

1 ‘Gattimelam’ also spelled ‘ketti melam’ refers to the traditional wind and percussion ensemble that accompanies the Hindu ritual marriage ceremony.

2 The Tamil word “kalyana mandapa“means marriage hall.

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Figure 4-2. Actor Nagesh comically conducts a gattimelam in 1970’s Tamil film Ethiroli (left) and traditional gattimelam performers in contemporary Chennai at a local wedding in Chennai (right) .3

The gattimelam, a small ensemble, serves an important role in the Hindu marriage ceremony. After the bride and groom arrive at the manavarai (wedding canopy), the priest performs purification rituals. At the auspicious time, when the groom ties the knot of the thali or mangalsutra (the wedding chain), the gattimelam resounds within the kalyana mandapa (marriage hall), drowning out any inauspicious or negative sounds.

While the traditional gattimelam forms an integral part of all Hindu wedding ceremonies, the choice of classical or popular music at the wedding receptions has until the late 1990s, largely reflected caste-based preferences. Growing up in Chennai during the 1980s and 1990s, I witnessed Carnatic kutcheris (concerts) as a staple at “upper- caste” brahmin wedding receptions; typically, non-brahmin and “lower-caste” Hindu

3 “Old Tamil Songs Kalyanam Kalyanam Sivaji Ganesan, Lakshmi – Ethiroli,” YouTube video, posted by “Best of Tamil and Telugu Movies – SEPL TV,” April 15, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2q xxXDxD1Y (left). and “Tamil Wedding Music... Nadaswaram,” YouTube video, posted by “Dj nAryan,” July 8, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDmHd_sC_48 center (right).

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wedding receptions featured ‘light music troupes’ or ‘light music orchestras’ at the wedding reception.

The Term ‘Light Music’

The term ‘light music’ or mel isai4 refers to the hybridized film music style, a style that combines elements from Indian Carnatic ragas and folk melodies, with western melodies, harmonization and instrumentation. For instance, the popular classic film song “Varayo Thozhi,” a wedding song and dance sequence from the film Paasa Malar

(1961) composed by Viswanathan and Ramamoorthy combines western chord progression I-vi-IV-V in G minor along with elements from the Carnatic raga sindhubhairavi5 (Example 4-1).

4 ‘Melam’ typically used to describe ensembles and the word isai in Tamil means ‘music.’ The root for ‘mel’ in Sanskrit means ‘to gather, meet or join.’ Richard Wolf and Zoe Sherinian, “Tamil Nadu.” Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Volume 5 – South Asia: the Indian Subcontinent. Routledge, 1999: 924-5).

5 The use of raga sindhubhairavi as Charulata Mani explains “has origins in the Middle East; often the Holy Koran is sung in this raga." It “is one of the most interesting and colourful of ragas. A melange of swaras (notes) finds its way into this accommodative raga…This raga is suited for lighter pieces, exudes bhakti (devotion) and sringara (attration, beauty, erotic or romantic love) rasas, and could melt mountains.” In Carnatic concerts, this raga is typically used for improvisation, but also features in lighter pieces like bhajans (devotional songs) sung at the end of a concert. Mani, Charulatha. “Light and Melodious—Raga Sindhubhairavi," Charulatha Mani: Carnatic Musician and Playback Singer (blog), May 19, 2013, http://charulathamani.blogspot.com/2013/05/light-and-melodious-raga-sindhubhairavi.html.

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Example 4-1. Transcription of Raga Sindhubhairavi in western notation. Author’s transcription.

In the film song, “Varayo Thozhi,” the use of raga sindhubhairavi serves to reinforce bhakti (devotion) and sringara (love or bliss) rasas (aesthetic emotions) to heighten the mood and tone of the filmic wedding scene. While film musicians draw on an eclectic set of musical traditions to create this light music style, it is important to emphasize that these hybridized musical objects seldom adhere to the established rudiments of any traditional music theory. It is this propensity for film music composers to playfully combine diverse sonorities that frequently relegates film music to the category of easy listening. Often viewed as a corruption and threat to traditional music, film music is disdainfully referred to as light music, unworthy of serious listening. Similar

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distinctions between classical and popular music prevail within global music contexts. In

Margins Released (1962), however, novelist, playwriter, and social commentator, J.B.

Priestly, comments on popular music’s appeal despite its lack of “seriousness”:

Because, unlike serious work, light music lacks musical content. It acts as a series of vials, often charmingly shaped and coloured, for the distillations of memory. The first few bars of it remove the stopper, we find ourselves reliving, not remembering, but magically recapturing, some exact moments of our past.

It is in film music’s ability to recapture emotions, to alleviate pain from daily tedium, to allow people to lose themselves in a magic of the “reel” world of make believe, that ‘light music’ has captivated the attention of the masses.

The Emergence of Light Music Artists and Bands for Live Performance

Beyond their narrative context, Tamil film songs have historically been a mass- mediated commodity, structured and marketed largely to entertain and promote the film.

During the 1970s, popular film playback singers began performing their recorded repertoire within live public settings for weddings and other socio-cultural gatherings.

Instrumentalists who accompanied singers within these live contexts were not always film musicians; many of the accompanists were amateur and self-taught musicians who formed live bands called ‘light music troupes’ or ‘light music orchestras.’

While it was not uncommon for upper-class English-speaking male youth— typically young men from economically privileged backgrounds—to perform western popular songs with live bands at clubs and social gatherings, it was considered nefarious for ordinary, self-taught, middle-class women to perform covers of popular

Tamil film music in public. In the late 1960s, however, it was a young brahmin woman,

Usha (Iyer) Uthup, who made it socially acceptable for ordinary women to perform covers of popular film songs within live settings like clubs.

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Usha Uthup was born into a brahmin family that fostered her love for music. Her distinctive natural voice resisted formal Carnatic music training and her lower tessitura equally failed to conform to the vocal range demanded of popular female film playback singers at the time. Uthup recalls how even at the Convent of Jesus and Mary school she attended “Ms Davidson always threw me out of class because she couldn’t fit my bass voice in. But they recognised that there was something musical about me, so I was allowed to play clappers or the triangle.”6 Her role models at the time were her two elder sisters who introduced her to “varied kinds of music from Beethoven to Bach to Bade

Ghulam Ali Khan, Kishori Amonkar and Cliff Richard and the Beatles and Frank Sinatra.

It was really mixed. When people ask me who’s your inspiration, I say Radio Ceylon.”7

The airwaves were her teacher.

Legend has it that, one evening when Usha Uthup accompanied her aunt and uncle to a nightclub in Madras called Night Gems. Her aunt and uncle urged her to perform with the band. Always considered the life of the party, Uthup required little coaxing. That night, she sang Little Willie John’s hit “Fever” with the live band. One song turned into an hour of singing. Uthup reminisced about that evening, “Then the band got me to sing with them for the whole week, and at the end of the week they gave me a Kanjivaram sari.”8 Uthup thus began her singing career fashioning a unique image for herself; clad in a Kanjivaram silk sari, decked out like a bride with jewelry and a

6 Fernandes, Naresh. “Dot Buster,” Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay's Jazz Age (blog), July 16, 2011, http://www.tajmahalfoxtrot.com/?p=507.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid. A Kanjivaram or Kanchipuram saree is a type of silk saree from the Kanchipuram region of Tamil Nadu. These are formal sarees typically worn by women for special occasions.

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glittery bindi.9 She visually conformed to norms of female respectability, yet sang popular western and Indian film songs in nightclubs. Usha recalls:

Where it was the prerogative of Anglo-Indians coming out in their slinky black dresses and singing in nightclubs, I changed it by just coming in a sari. Slowly, the nightclub became a place that was not just frequented by men. It became a family thing because they found this very homely looking person singing there. People didn’t hesitate to bring their wives or mothers or sisters. They figured that if Usha Uthup was singing, it couldn’t be that bad.10

Uthup also learned early in her career that singing covers of popular local language film songs, rather than covers of popular European and American songs, enabled her to make an instant connection. As she commentated, “it had a whole different context with the audience.”11

In this manner, Uthup made singing covers of film songs in public spaces more respectable for middle-class female singers. Moreover, her performances within the club opened up opportunities for her to perform renditions of western and regional

Indian language hits on national television (Figure 4-3 left), further easing her entry into film music production. Uthup has made several cameo appearances and lent her voice for film soundtracks since her début in Hindi film Bombay to Goa (1972) (Figure 4-3 left), up until recently in 7 Khoon Maaf (2011). Many contemporary middle-class female self-taught singers not only benefit from the path Uthup paved, in terms of making live film performance more respectable for women, but they also draw on her trajectory as a model to emulate in order to become successful in mainstream production.

9 A bindi is the red dot worn women wear on their forehead, typically worn by Hindu women.

10 Naresh Fernandes, “Dot Buster,” http://www.tajmahalfoxtrot.com/?p=507.

11 Ibid.

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Figure 4-3. Usha Uthup performing a cover of ‘If’ by Bread on Doordarshan, national TV (left) and featured as a western nightclub singer in the popular 1972 Hindi film Bombay to Goa (right).12

Following in Usha Uthup’s footsteps, over the last four decades, many female amateur and self-taught musicians have performed covers of Tamil film songs at weddings. Typically, these female singers and their accompanying instrumentalists are socially, culturally, and economically on the margins of film music production. Some depend almost exclusively on seasonal live wedding gigs or stage performances for their livelihood.13 Since the 1970s and 1980s, these ‘light music troupes’ comprising amateur and self-taught musicians gained popularity for their re-enactments of popular

Tamil film songs at weddings and live shows within Chennai, smaller towns, India, and occasionally in the diaspora (Figure 4-4).

12 “IF-by-usha uththup.MPG,” YouTube video, posted by “Bobby Mudgal,” July 11, 2011, httos://www.you tube.com/watch?v=dH1Cqkgw6CM (left). “Listen To The Pouring Rain - Amitabh Bachchan & Aruna Irani - Bombay To Goa,” YouTube video, posted by Rajshri January 10, 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=jK_N2BAr4LE (right).

13 In his research on brass band performers at North Indian weddings, Gregory Booth observes how these musicians within “their urban community, [are] poorly paid, and generally ignored by the rest of the musical world.” Furthermore, Booth argues that brass band musicians have no influence in film music production. Booth, “Traditional Practice and Mass Mediated Music in India,” 164.

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Figure 4-4. From left to right: B.V. Ramanan & Party, Lakshman Shruthi, Sai Sai Shruthi Light Music Orchestra and troupes. Photos from troupes’ websites.

Troupes like B.V. Ramanan & Party, Lakshman Shruti, and Sai Sai Shruthi14 draw on the mainstream Tamil film industry’s hybrid musical style and instrumentation to perform reductions of these eclectic sonorities, thus allowing them to appropriate the suffix, “light music,” to their band names. The inclusion of the term “light music" lends an aura of credibility to these unknown artists who perform on the fringes of mainstream production, enabling them to present a professional image.

Dhivyaraja Shruthi Light Music Orchestra

Among the plethora of light music orchestras and troupes vying for visibility in

Chennai, Dhivyaraja Shruthi, founded by Dhivyaraja Mazan (Vandana’s father) in 1985, boasts of over thirty years of experience with over “3000 light music shows all over the country.”15 Their repertoire includes a range of popular Tamil romantic and wedding film hits that date back to the 1960s: “Malarnthum Malaratha” from Pasamalar (1961), “Enna

14 B.V. Ramanan & Party website. Accessed March 7, 2018. http://bvramanan.com/photogallery.html (left), “On a Different Note,” The Hindu, August 7, 2003. http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mp/2003/08/ 07/stories/2003080700880300.html. (accessed March 7, 2018) (center), and Sri Sai Sruthi Official website. Accessed March 7, 2018. http://sssruthi.blogspot.com (right).

15 Dhivyaraja Shruthi website. Accessed March 7, 2018. http://www.dhivyarajashruthi.in.

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Enna Vaarthaigalo” from Vennira Aadai (1965), 1990s hits like “O Butterfly, Butterfly” from Meera (1992) “Thendral Vanthu Theendum” from Avatharam (1995), and more contemporary repertoire by popular film music directors such as A.R. Rahman, Harris

Jeyaraj, Anirudh, and Santhosh Narayanan.

With their motto, “No noise, only music,” 16 displayed on their promotional banner at live events, the band guarantees two and a half to three-hour performances, with quality as their primary objective (Figure 4-5).

Figure 4-5. Dhivyaraja Shruthi’s promotional banner displayed at live performances. Photos from website.

Unlike light music orchestras and troupes from the 1980s and 1990s that typically produced a raw, tinny sound, Dhivyaraja Shruthi assures clients: “Special consideration is given on sound production. For that we have Digital Mixing Console in our live shows which is normally used in professional recording studios.”17 In the 1990s, when having

DJs at weddings became a trend, it began to threaten the livelihood of light music

16 “Dhivyaraja Mazan Sings Janani - Dhivyaraja Shruthi’s Very Grand Show,” YouTube video, posted by “Dhyvyaraja Shruthi Light Music Orchestra Chennai,” September 26. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watc h?v=GAxKZ2tFu2c (left) and Dhivyaraja Shruthi official website. Accessed March 7, 2018. http://www.dhi vyarajashruthi.in.

17 Dhivyaraja Shruthi official website. Accessed March 7, 2018. http://www.dhivyarajashruthi.in.

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troupes. As a result, Dhivyaraja and his daughters focused on building their home studio.

Vagu drew on sound recording and processing techniques she developed within the studio to set themselves apart from other light music troupes. It is essential to point out the Mazan sisters’ musical practices for their live and recorded cover projects. For the covers they created within the studio, Vagu emulated professional Chennai popular musicians who employed squeaks and scratches on their recordings to reproduce the element of liveness. Similarly, Vandana reproduced vocal ad libs, and a breathy, aspirated tone to convey a sense of intimacy that is frequently associated with live performance. Contrastingly, within their live performance settings, to establish their credibility as serious, professional musicians they employed digital apps, and occasionally used programmed minus one tracks to boost the quality of their live sound and recreate a perfection that is possible only with recorded performance. Such musical practices recall Phillip Auslander’s observation that the Beach Boys found it necessary to replicate recorded performance in live settings to demonstrate authenticity.18 Over the years, Dhivyaraja Shruthi had accrued a reputation for presenting a full orchestra with a more refined sound when compared to other light music troupes and orchestras in the city. Testimonials on their official website read: “The orchestration was absolutely in par with the slogan “NO NOISE.ONLY MUSIC.”19

Wedding parties frequently approach Dhivyaraja Mazan with requests to feature former or current music reality television show Airtel Super Singer contestants as lead

18 Phillip Auslander, Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture (New York: Routledge, 1999), 83.

19 Dhivyaraja Shruthi official website. Accessed March 7, 2018. http://www.dhivyarajashruthi.in.

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singers at their wedding receptions. Weddings in India are important events for families to brag about and demonstrate their wealth and social status. Splurging on expensive invitations, silk sarees, gold ornaments, and caterers all serve as markers of affluence, as do the choice of specific kalyana mandapa or five-star hotels as venues. More recently, riches and social status are also made visible by hiring popular music reality television contestants to perform at the wedding reception. At one of Dhivyaraja

Shruthi’s wedding gigs, Srikanth, a contestant from the junior version of Airtel Super

Singer, gave a dynamic, entertaining performance. The audience looked on mesmerized as the child singer dressed in a faux leather jacket and boots belted his

“boy voice” over the band. As Srikanth sang and danced charismatically across the stage, Dhivyaraja Mazan joined in. Discotheque lights flashed all over the room creating an electrifying performance (Figure 4-6).

Figure 4-6. Srikanth contestant from Airtel Super Singer Junior presents a scintillating performance with Dhivyaraja Shruthi.20

20 “Vijay TV Airtel Super Singer Junior Srikanth in Dhivyaraja Shruthi Light Music Orchestra in Chennai,” YouTube video, posted by “Dhivyaraja Shruthi Light Music Orchestra Chennai,” online [accessed March 7, 2018] .

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The Mazans Negotiate a Deal with Wedding Gig Clients

I frequently wondered how the Mazans negotiated deals with their wedding clients and Super Singers.21 What were some of the considerations involved in planning for such elaborate events? On February 24, 2016, as I sat around the studio waiting for

Vandana and Vagu to start working on a composition, I unexpectedly witnessed

Dhivyraja Mazan finalize a wedding gig with a client. The clients, completely oblivious of how verbal contracts are made within this live scene, came with their own set of expectations. It was their agenda to finalize the list of Super Singers during this meeting and have the singers’ names printed on the wedding invitations—a marker of their status among their social circles. In the following pages of dialogue and negotiations between Dhivyaraja and his clients, it will be apparent the status of Super Singers in

Chennai is responsible for their high demand and high remuneration. Their status not only leads to high demand because it is a validation of their singing ability, but also because having popular Super Singers perform boosts the social status of the host.

This dynamic clearly irks the Mazans because the Super Singers have seemingly attained fame overnight despite being less skilled than professional musicians.

February 24, 2016

I am seated in the Mazan’s ill-lit Valasaravakkam D-studio with Vandana and Vagu, when the front door opens and the ‘Om Namah Shivaya’ chant wafts through the doorway (Example 4-2.):

21 Singing contestants on the music reality television show Airtel Super Singer are typically referred to as Super Singers on the show and within popular culture.

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Example 4-2. ‘Om Namah Shivaya’ chant plays on loop by the entrance of the studio. Author’s transcription.

Dhivyaraja Mazan and three middle-aged men dressed in traditional South Indian attire enter and settle down on the white faux leather couches by the entrance of the studio (Figure 4-9). Enshrouded in darkness, after a few minutes of awkward silence, the men make small talk with Dhivyaraja. Dhivyaraja mentions how lucky the family was during the previous monsoon. They were able to save the studio and the recording equipment; the only damage incurred was wet carpeting, which they replaced within a week. The men click their tongues and shake their heads in amazement. They connect over the recent catastrophe that befell Chennai, which helped break the ice. The men enquire about the basic lay out and size of the studio, making an appraisal of Dhivyaraja and business. After describing the basic layout of the studio, Dhivyaraja clears his throat and abruptly gets down to business (Figure 4-7).

Figure 4-7. Dhivyaraja and his wedding gig clients negotiating a deal. Photo by author.

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Dhivyaraja: Tell me the date?

Client: June 16th

[Silence]

Dhivyaraja: Ok. So, I’ve blocked the time for that evening.

[More silence]

Dhivyaraja pulls out his phone, dials, then speaks into the receiver: Vannakam,22 are you free on Jun 16th? It’s a local gig. Ah ok, check with him and tell me. Yes, the local program is confirmed for that date.

Dhivyaraja to the client: I was speaking to Shravan’s father. He will check their calendar and get back to me. He sings with us on a regular basis.

Client: It will be great if you can confirm it immediately!

Dhivyaraja: Confirming immediately is not possible! I need to meet him at his level. If not, he’s raise his price. Don’t worry he will definitely be free!

Client [anxious]: I’m a little insistent because…

Dhivyaraja: Yes, I understand. But, if I force it now they’ll raise their price to Rs. 50,000. We have to negotiate casually.

[Silence]

Dhivyaraja dials and speaks into the receiver: Good evening! Dhivyaraja here. Is Prithvi free for a local concert on June 16? Ok, ok…thank you!

Dhivyaraja to the client: As soon as I ask them for a date these people put up their price and mention they have unconfirmed trips abroad and have to check and get back to me. This is why we will have to give them an advance and be patient. Don’t worry, if not for her I can get her sister. If not for Nithyashree, I’ll get her older sister Vyjayanthi; she too is a great singer and looks good. What I have to do is just contact them. I mustn’t pressurize them now. Don’t misunderstand my intentions now. I’ve worked with them before. I have two shows coming up with them, one is on the 7th of this month. You have to negotiate casually. Also realize that they will not confirm immediately. I have to talk to them at least 4 times before they accept the program. There are other girls too. There’s someone called Shivani.

22 A traditional Tamil greeting.

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[Silence] Dhivyaraja dials and speaks into the receiver: Vannakam saar (sir). This June 16th saar we have a local program saar. [silence] June 16th. Take two days. The event has been confirmed. Shall I call you back in two days? Ok. Thank you!

Dhivyaraja to the client: There are a lot more singers. That was Roshan. Roshan from Perambur. We can get all these contemporary singers. I can’t be sure which ones we will get now, but we’ll get two singers for certain!

One of the clients: Let’s talk about the budget.

Dhivyaraja: Nithyashree is the only one who charges Rs. 25,000. She’s acted in a lot of films too, but she’s on her way to the U.S. now so I can’t persuade her. Don’t worry there’s a lot of time we’ll get them.

Client: How certain are you about her?

Dhivyaraja: I understand. I know you want a Super Singer. They’re all like this; we can’t confirm immediately. The only reason we have got this far is because I know these people personally. We won’t have Nithyashree, I’ll get her older sister Vyjayanthi. Then there’s Shravan I called. If not for him there’s Prithvi. I understand that your daughter’s desire is to have a Super Singer at her wedding. I’ll take the singer’s schedules into consideration and find you the right singers. Alright?

Client: Yeah, my daughter’s friend had a Super Singer for her wedding, so now my daughter is adamant, she wants Super Singers too!

Dhivyaraja: [Laughs] Don’t worry. I promised you.

Client: Ok. So, who do you think we can get to sing?

Dhivyaraja: Give me a week’s time. I’ll contact you. Let them accept the offer. They might have other shows to choose from and we should not put them in a situation where they will be forced to backout later. As soon as they confirm, quickly pay an advance (deposit) into their bank account; that will seal the deal.

Dhivyaraja: Nithyashree is not available her father said she’s going to the U.S.A. If her sister is unavailable. I can get Priyanka; for local shows, she’s not as expensive.

Client: Ok so when can you get a confirmation from the list of singers you spoke to earlier? Also, your charges are Rs. 50,000? We’ll give you the Rs. 5,000 deposit and the remaining Rs.45, 000 later?

Dhivyaraja: Yeah, give me Rs. 5,000 now and leave it to me. I’ll see to everything.

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Client: Tell them that my daughter is specifically asking for them.

Dhivyaraja: No, we can’t tell them that. If they know you’re desperate they’ll increase the rate. I’ll let you know the details and how much they’ll charge. Ok? Once there was a singer who ended up asking for Rs. 40, 000, so I decided to call Nithyashree’s sister instead; she’ll ask for only Rs. 20,000.

Client: What about the male voice?

Dhivyaraja: There’s Shravan. If you call him, you’ll get the other one too. If you call the other guy you get Shravan. They work as a team.

Client: Have you conducted events with all these singers? Can you show us some demos videos?

Dhivyaraja: It’s all on the Internet. Go home and check out the Internet. We don’t have copies available here. It’s all over the Internet. People from American and Canada have seen our shows on YouTube.

Clients: [start browsing YouTube videos on their phones] These?

Dhivyaraja: That’s an old show. Those are all Ilaiyaraaja’s songs. I’ll see to everything. Don’t worry.

Client: Ok Get Priyanka or Nithyashree and Shravan.

Dhivyaraja: I’ve told you already Nithyashree is not available.

Client: Ok then confirm Priyanka and Shravan.

Dhivyaraja: Ok. Don’t brag about them performing at your daughter’s wedding until they confirm because if they come to hear of it through other sources, we’ll have to pay more.

Client: [Laughs] No, no. You’re the only soul who knows. How long will they be around on that day?

Dhivyaraja: They’ll be there for the entire 3 hours.

Client: So, both of them will sing?

Dhivyaraja: No not just them. We’ll sing too and then there’s the orchestra. Won’t you let me sing? [he teased, and they all laugh]

Dhivyaraja: See, the media has projected them and made them bigshots. Our orchestra performs better than some of these singers. That’s what the media does, it focuses on certain people and brainwashes you.

Client: What about their musicians?

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Dhivyaraja: Their musicians are different; we have our orchestra. I’ll make sure I utilize the Super Singers to the maximum.

Client: Make sure that they’re the focus, make sure that they sing for most of the show.

Dhivyaraja: Certainly! You’re paying them a lot more.

Client counts and hands over a deposit of Rs.5,000.

Dhivyaraja: Please give my daughter your e-mail id, we’ll send you the receipt. I’ll see to everything.

Client: Please confirm Priyanka and Shravan.

Dhivyaraja: I told you we can’t rush these things. I’ll confirm it within a week. I need to fix everything as well, so I need their confirmation soon. Don’t worry.

Client: That’s why we decided to book them three months in advance.

Dhivyaraja: As soon as they confirm I’ll pay them a deposit of Rs. 10,000. This is my responsibility.

Client: We want to be sure we get them.

Dhivyaraja: So, there’s one thing you need to understand, even after you’ve booked these singers, if they get a bigger show abroad, they’ll cancel last minute and tell us they’re going to the U.S. Now that I know you want Prinyanka, all I need to do is approach her in the right way. She will be there for certain. I’ll confirm this within a week. If not for her, there is always someone else.

Client: Sir, you’ve been doing business with them regularly. You know them personally. You can at least confirm it now.

Dhivyaraja: They won’t confirm now. The reason is they get a lot of offers and will need to pick and choose, jump from one to another. I will have to sweet talk them.

Client: We just want to know which singers we will get. If they don’t confirm we can move on to someone else. See my daughter wanted these two singers that was our goal. If they can’t come, then we can decide they won’t be part of the show and we would like to have some say in cancelling and finding someone else.

Dhivyaraja: I have a list of singers.

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Vagu: So, whom according to you is their equal? These are singers from the competition’s junior category. We can even get famous playback singer Hariharan, is that all right with you?

Client: How much?

Vagu: 40,000 to 50,000 locally.

Client: See we’d like to print the names out in the invitation that’s why we’d like to know whom.

Vagu: See there are thousands of Super Singers! If not for the two you ask for there are even more singers!

Dhivyaraja: We’ll find Super Singers. Call after one week and we’ll confirm the singers. It may not even take that long, it would be any day, today, tomorrow, perhaps.

Client: Ok I’ll get in touch with you within the next two days.

Dhivyaraja: Within a week I’ll confirm. I can’t rush them.

Client: We want to print their names in on the invitation. We don’t want to print the names now and be embarrassed later if we don’t get these singers.

Dhivyaraja: This is not a cause for embarrassment. We don’t work with these singers under a contract. They know about the dates. If I resort to pressurizing them to confirm the date immediately, they will increase their rates, please be patient. Ok? [Dhivyaraja’s tone is becoming stern and belligerent]

Client: Ok, so why have you decided on a fixed amount now? We don’t want arguments later about money.

Dhivyaraja [irritated]: You’ve conferred the responsibility upon me. It’s my job to make sure to find the Super Singers. Trust me. Please be patient for a while. I’ll see to it.

Client [Laughs]: Sir is getting all agitated. Just confirm within a week who is coming.

Clients get up to leave

Dhivyaraja: I’m not getting agitated! I’ve been in the field for a long time. You can’t rush things. These people come to the studio often, so things will happen. I don’t want to be careless and rush things.

Client: Ok saar we’ll give you one week. Just confirm it.

Dhivyaraja [raises his voice annoyed]: I’ve already given you my word.

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Clients: [laugh and deflect attention toward Vagu]: Does this child sing?

Dhivyaraja [beams proudly as he leads the clients outside]: No, she’s not a singer; she’s a guitarist, a very fine musician, very brilliant!

As the door opens, and Dhivyaraja leads the men out, the auspicious sounds of the ‘Om Namah Shivaya’ chant float into the studio (Example 4-3):

Example 4-3. Recorded track of ‘Om Namah Shivaya’ chant plays on loop by the entrance of the studio. Author’s transcription.

The tension that permeated the studio with the argumentative men’s voice now dissipate. The sacred chant fills the studio space with peace and calm. Vagu releases a sigh of relief and laughs:

“This is my father’s style!!! This could have been such an easy negotiation. But seriously you know even after we confirm the event and pay an advance, these Super Singers are such opportunists. If they get a better deal either locally or abroad, they back out, sometimes even one week before the wedding. Just look at these people [clients], they’re so desperate to get two junior amateur singers at the wedding. On the day of the wedding, all the guests will crowd around these singers to take selfies! And this is what they charge Rs. 40,000! Rs. 40,000-50,000 just locally, out of town it is Rs. 65,000. So, you see, these are the kinds of people we deal with. Iithu thaan kalyana kutcheri! (That’s a wedding gig for you!).”

This frustrating negotiation revealed the clients had neither knowledge of, nor cared about, the processes involved in hiring musicians for a wedding gig. The clients’ goal was to finalize the singers immediately and advertise the popular Super Singers’ names on the printed wedding invitations. They failed to understand that while Dhivyaraja did business with them on a regular basis, these young singers were primarily beholden to contracts with Airtel Super Singer, and frequently cancelled wedding gigs at the last

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minute. Fortunately, within a week, Airtel Super Singers Priyanka and Yazhini confirmed they would perform at the reception. I was unable to attend the wedding reception because I had already left India, but Vagu, in her WhatsApp communication, informed me that the wedding party was ecstatic with the performance.

Real and Reel-Life Contemporary Tamil Hindu Weddings

The wedding I discussed above is opulent by suburban standards. In the following section, I describe the phenomenon of the even more extravagant ‘big fat

Indian wedding,’ modeled on cinematic representations of the ideal wedding. Many of these weddings employ film song and dance sequences, where a more western style live band now replaces the light music troupes of the 1980s—a space that Vandana and

Vagu would soon come to occupy.

Jyotsna Kapur observes, “The big fat Bollywood wedding has become a trademark attraction of contemporary Indian culture.”23 Similarly, weddings in the real world have become more cinematized. Since the 1990s, the neoliberal Indian’s penchant for individually-customized weddings have transformed the traditional Hindu wedding. Professional wedding planners who have commodified and made this socio- religious event more ostentatious now organize weddings that were hithertoi arranged by immediate family members and close friends of the bride and groom. A local newspaper article in The Hindu, titled “Marry me? Yes, but only in style,” reports that contemporary weddings demand the best quality and attention to aesthetically pleasing arrangements. Western influences such as photo frames, ivory cages, and umbrellas

23 Jyotsna Kapur, “An ‘‘Arranged Love’’ Marriage: India’s Neoliberal Turn and the Bollywood Wedding Culture Industry,” Communication, Culture & Critique. No 2 (2009), 221.

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have made their way into the wedding décor. 24 Several wedding rituals are re-enacted and invented based on scenes, as well as song and dance sequences from popular films. Thamizharasi, a wedding planner from Wedlinks, worked with a couple “that wanted the stage for their cocktail party to look exactly like the one in ‘Badtameez Dil’ from Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani. That alone cost about 58 lakhs!”25 Epic Weddings, a

Chennai-based wedding planning company invites couples to “Make your choice, a Big fat Indian wedding, or a Slim Trim Budget wedding. We are with you to make it happen.”26 More recently, wedding planners have partnered with professional photographers and videographer to create “making-of” wedding videos in a formulaic cinematized style to include in their wedding packages (Figure 4-8).

24 Priyanka Parthasarthy and Sanjana Gautham, “Marry Me? Yes, But Only in Style,” The Hindu, Online, [accessed March 12, 2018] .

25 “58 Lakhs is an equivalent of $900,000 USD. Priyanka Parthasarthy and Sanjana Gautham, “Marry Me? Yes, But Only in Style,” The Hindu, June 16, 2015, http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/ fashion/marry-me-yes-but-only-in-tyle/article7322126.ece. (accessed March 12, 2018).

26 Epic Weddings website, Accessed March 16, 2018.http://www.epicweddings.in.

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Figure 4-8. “Making of” wedding videos in Chennai commodify live experiences as a cinematic spectacle. Screenshots from YouTube videos.

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These “making-of” videos shared on YouTube bear titles like “The big fat wedding of…,” “Royal Wedding Reception Highlights of,” and so forth, which convey the notion of opulence.27 Popular Tamil film songs accompany these glamorous visuals of real-life cinematic wedding experiences. Many of these unique, commodified experiences blur the lines between the realms of lived and reel life experience. A comparison of stills from a popular Tamil film song “Kalyanam Kalyanam” from the

Tamil film Unnodu Ka (2016), and footage from Dhivyaraja Shruthi’s wedding videos performances on YouTube demonstrate the extent to which the staging of a wedding as a cinematic spectacle (Figure 4-9 left) and the staging of its real-life counterpart (Figure

4-9 right) have become increasingly blurred: The comparison in the following images reveal: a) the bridal party entrance at the reception hall, b) professional photographers documenting the wedding experience, c) family and friends providing entertainment à la mode flash mob-style dance, and d) hired wedding performers.

27 “The Cinematic video of Priya & Vasanth "The big fat wedding",” YouTube video, posted by “Jeevan Wedding arts,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um0VSc7rU_Y, “The Bigfat Reception of Priya & Vasanth,” YouTube video, posted by Jeevan Wedding arts,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTvALg1 6Slk, and “Balakumaran + Radhika | Royal Wedding Reception Highlights | ISWARYA PHOTOS” YouTube video, posted by “Iswarya Photos,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHTHpvvrBYk.

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Figure 4-9. Vignettes from Tamil film film Unnodu Ka (2016) (left) and real (right) life weddings on YouTube. Screenshot from YouTube videos.

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In keeping with the hyper-visual nature of contemporary weddings, light music troupes and orchestras, popular during the 1980s and 1990s, have recently given way to sophisticated contemporary bands. The sound of contemporary bands and popular

Super Singers’ voices mediated by hi-tech sound systems further complement the globalized aesthetic of contemporary popular Tamil Hindu weddings (Figure 4-10).

Figure 4-10. Achu’s band Pranetra accompanies Airtel Super Singers Priyanka and Kaushik at a wedding in Raja Muthaiya Hall. Photo from Achu’s Facebook Profile.

The Mazan sisters’ collaboration with drummer Achu provided opportunities to perform with his contemporary fusion bands Pranetra and AD and the Band. Unlike their father’s wedding gigs, where the sisters received no compensation, a four-hour long performance with Achu’s bands at more opulent wedding receptions within the city provided a personal income of Rs.3000 - 5,000 ($ 50 – 70 USD). Moreover, working with Achu, provided wider visibility among Chennai’s audiences and musicians. The sisters encountered highly-successful Airtel Super Singers and professional playback

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singers at some of these gigs. Such encounters enabled them to build their network and networking skills, which were crucial to keeping up with Chennai’s fast-paced urban professional and social life. In doing so, wider visibility within live cover circles also enabled them to reconfigure their relationship between the margins and mainstream.28

The Transnational Wedding Gig

It is important to note that the Tamil wedding gig is much more than just a local event; they are a transnational phenomenon. Tamilians in the diaspora demonstrate their status by hiring musicians from Chennai to add an authentic flair to their weddings.

In 2017, Vagu was invited twice to perform at wedding receptions in Malaysia (Figure 4-

11). She put together a four-piece band comprising self-taught musicians: Brainard

(bass guitar), Living (percussion), Sharath (flute), and Vagu (guitar). Before they left for

Malaysia, the band set aside a day to rehearse their instrumental renditions of popular

Tamil film songs.

Figure 4-11. Vagu’s mobile uploads on Facebook before the Wedding gig performance in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photo from Vagu’s Facebook profile.

28 Lawrence Grossberg, “You (still) Have to Fight for Your Right to Party: Music Television as Billboards of Post-modern Difference,” Popular Music 7, no.3 (1988): 321.

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For local self-taught musicians like Vagu with creative aspirations, touring on the international wedding gig circuit is not only attractive, but also provides a fast-track path to a successful career. The international gigs paid up to Rs. 20,000 per musician, with visa, travel, and accommodation provided by the wedding party. Touring and sightseeing with the band allowed Vagu to present herself online as a successful international musician with global connections to her fans and followers on social media

(Figure 4-12).

Figure 4-12. Vagu checking out a guitar store in Bentley Music in Bukit Bintang and sightseeing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photos Vagu’s from Facebook profile.

Given that the local cover scene is shaped by interactions with performers and audiences within India and across the diaspora, such international opportunities for a middle-class female musician like Vagu, provide a means to scale the professional and social ladder at the local level.

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Covers for a Cause: Hierarchies, Roles, and Remuneration

In addition to wedding gigs, the Mazan sisters performed covers of Tamil film

songs with Achu’s bands at clubs, fundraisers, and corporate shows (Figure 4-13).

Figure 4-13. Vandana performs with AD and the Band at Sangrash April 2, 2016 and Lion’s Club Inauguration August 25, 2016. Photo from Vandana’s Facebook profile.

This section focuses on a specific charity event. On April 2, 2016, I attended the Mazan sisters’ performance with Achu’s AD and the Band at Sangarsh, an annual charity fundraiser. Since 2003, the organizers—students and faculty from the College of

Engineering, Anna University’s Rotaract Club29—have collected proceeds in support of various causes—children affected by HIV, cancer, and polio. The concert I attended in

2016 was in aid of children with leukemia.

While AD and the Band were hired by the college to perform at the show, their role as little-known, self-taught musicians was to accompany the main stars of the show—those who had shot to fame as winners on Airtel Super Singer. For musicians like Vandana and Vagu, the only claim to superiority the Super Singers had over the band musicians was their overnight fame and success achieved through media hype

29 The Rotract club is the youth division (between the ages of 18-30) of the international Rotrary club, which aims to bring together professionals interested in assisting with humanitarian service.

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and popular public votes. Moreover, the primacy of the solo voice within traditional music contexts continues to shape popular music and its musical hierarchies. AD and the Band—the instrumentalists and singers—were made to serve the main artists.

Status, hierarchy, or prominence was made visible in various ways. For instance, the organizers created an official poster featuring only the main artists (Figure 4-14).

Figure 4-14. Official posters created by organizers of Sangarsh featuring Airtel Super Singers. Photos from Sangarsh’16 Facebook page.

AD and the Band created their own poster, which the organizers later agreed to add to their Facebook promotional page for Sangarsh’16 (Figure 4-15).

Figure. 4-15. Poster created by AD and the Band for Sangarsh’s. Photos from Facebook page for Sangarsh’16.

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During the performance, other hierarchies concerning female performers were made visible. While traditional notions of female respectability appear less restrictive for popular musicians, lesser-known female self-taught musicians like Vandana and Vagu still feel compelled to adhere to social expectations. During the performance, Vandana commented that one of the female Airtel Super Singers was unlike other modest female musicians. This singer wore a figure-revealing, western-style dress and danced suggestively as she sang. Moreover, when she introduced one of her songs, she announced it as the highly-sexualized musical genre ‘kuttu’30 to titillate the young men in the audience. The female singer’s daringly inappropriate style of dress, demeanor, and manner of speaking, however, evoked both shock and awe in her audience. While some audiences perceived her comportment as a cause for the moral decline of female respectability, others marveled at her charisma. For lesser-known female performers like Vandana, on the other hand, who might take a risk to walk the thin line between success and marginalization, there is always a fear of being shunned on moral grounds.

There is the risk of being perceived as promiscuous instead of being perceived as charismatic. While audiences may excuse or welcome such liberties taken by a popular female singer, they are less likely to condone such behavior from ordinary, middle-class young women like Vandana who have yet to attain popularity and fame.

In addition to the differences in roles and performance hierarchies are the terms for remuneration: each band member received between Rs. 3,000 – 5,000, while Super

Singers charged Rs. 20,000 – 60,000 for the charity gig. Self-taught musicians perceive

30 Kuttu is a folk music style that Tamil film music has indexically linked with suggestive, sexual carnal pleasure. The female singer pronounced the word ‘kuttu,’ as ‘kutu’ to ‘poke’ or ‘penetrate,’ which reinforced the highly suggestive nature of the genre.

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Super Singers’ overnight rise to stardom, the media attention they receive, and the exorbitant remuneration they charge to self-taught musicians as an “aniyāyam” or grave injustice. When small bands choose to work with Super Singers, financial agreements that initially appeared appealing seem unacceptable, and can be a source for resentment.

Hierarchies and difference of social categories of class and ethnicity make no difference to the interactions and performance dynamics of the performers both on and off-stage. At shows like Sangarsh, the relationship between popular and ordinary musicians is critical, because the two are dependent on each other for a successful show. Super Singers owe much of their popularity to fans and public votes; demonstrations of a pleasing personality and camaraderie with fellow performers is essential to their public image. Taking ‘selfies’ with fellow performers to post on social media helps boost the popularity of both Super Singers and unknown self-taught musicians (Figure 4-16).

Figure 4-16. Selfies of Airtel Super Singers and members of AD and the Band after the Sangarsh performance. Photos from Vandana to author.

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Sangarsh’16: Tamil Film Song Covers for a Cause. Throughout Sangarsh’16

MCs, organizers, and special guests (doctors), brought awareness to the objectives of the show—raising funds for pediatric acute leukemia. Doctors spoke of the work they had accomplished, as well as their future plans while the organizers talked about how the funds would support and benefit children affected by leukemia. At one point during the show, one MC called onto the stage a little boy who had recently received a successful treatment for leukemia. To demonstrate his appreciation, the little boy began dancing along to the live performance of a catchy popular Tamil film song (Figure 4-17).

The audience was moved by his performance and cheered for him.

Figure 4-17. Little boy cured from pediatric acute leukemia dances on stage at the Sangarsh’16 performance. Photo by Prabhu.

Despite the efforts made by the organizers to marry musical performance with a good cause, the performers—Airtel Super Singers and Ad and the Band—appeared to pursue a different end; they expressed a confused relationship to the cause and the little boy’s impromptu performance. The little boy made several attempts to make eye contact with

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the performers. The musicians, however, focused solely on the performance; they interacted with each other and the audience, but failed to acknowledge the boy during and after the performance. Their failure to engage with the boy and the cause was observed by Prabhu, an audience member whom I talked to after the show. He explained, “It was very sad, that little boy has overcome so much in his life. That was seriously inspiring! But the sad part, was our singers and musicians didn't encourage that kid; maybe they were busy on performance.”31

The notion of “charity events” typically involves musicians raising money for a worthy cause. For Super Singers and self-taught musicians in Chennai, however, there are many rewards for performing at charity shows. The organizers of these events take care of the costs of publicity, arrangements for the hall, sales of tickets, etc. On the day of the event, performers merely show up looking their best, have a sound check, and ensure the audience of a great performance. Unlike senior, professional musicians who typically do not accept remuneration for charity events, self-taught musicians and Super

Singers expect to be paid even for charity shows. Charity events, for them, like any other live event, are a means of earning an additional income and garnering attention.

Gigs at Shopping Malls

The third context I explore in this chapter is the mall gig. My fieldnote entries below describe my experiences with this relatively new context for cover performance of

Tamil film songs. While I got to experience an event by popular playback singer, Benny

Dayal, as an audience member, I also had the opportunity to experience performing

31 Prabhu, interview with author, April 2, 2016.

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covers with the Mazan sisters at another mall gig; these experiences provided deeper insights into their musical and image-making practices.

Popular Playback Singer Benny Dayal’s Mall Gig

February 6, 2016

10:00 a.m. Vandana called to invite me to join Vagu and her at the Forum Vijaya Mall for a concert at 7:00 p.m. Since my return to Chennai earlier that year, I had not been to any of the new malls yet. “A concert at the Mall?” I asked Vandana. “Yes! You know Benny Dayal? He’s a popular playback singer.” “And there’s a concert hall at the mall?” I asked. “No, no, no hall and all. Just come and you’ll see. Nowadays we have gigs at the mall,” she chuckled.

7:00 p.m. I alighted from my autorickshaw and walked toward the entrance of the mall. Like any Saturday, the mall was crowded; middle-class families and groups of teenagers walked in and out of the entrance. As I made my way through the crowd, I called Vandana. “Hey, I’m here, at the entrance, but I don’t see anything happening.” “Nina, keep walking, come inside to the center, you’ll see. Come soon, Vagu and I are here.” I had barely walked past the entrance and a few stores, when suddenly, I found myself floating along with a crowd in front of a stage. Band members and sound technicians were setting up (Figure 4-18 right). A jumbotron behind the stage flashed images of Benny Dayal and the Forum mall logo. A little more than a week away from Valentine’s Day, red cardboard cut-outs of hearts and cupid with his bow and arrow dangled from the ceiling (Figure 4-18 left). Just as Vandana and Vagu found me, Benny Dayal walked on to the stage. The crowd cheered. Dayal opened with a popular Hindi film hit “Locha e Ulfat.” Some audience members began filming the performance on their mobile phones. Others who were further away from the stage, those who struggled to see the performers, relocated to the railings above on each floor and witnessed the rest of the performance from their balcony spots. Still others who trickled in late those who had neither standing room on the first floor nor by the railings found it best to remain standing on the escalator; they moved up and down past each floor for the rest of the concert.

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Figure 4-18. Film Playback Singer Benny Dayal Performs Popular Film Songs at Forum Vijaya Mall February 6, 2106. Photo by author.

As I witnessed this live performance, I was reminded of Jonathan Sterne’s article,

“Sounds Like the Mall of America: Programming Music and the Architectonics of

Commercial Space.” Sterne argues that the mall, a capitalistic entity, is specifically designed as an acoustical space to target consumers. Muzak or programmed music in the hallway, is typically subtle and played in the background. However, each store foregrounds music appropriate to their brand message to target a specific audience.

The mall as a commercial space is filled with these soundtracks as shoppers engage in this culturally-specific ritual of browsing and buying, reaffirming capitalistic principles.32

Beyond this discourse and critiques on music as a capitalistic tool employed in

American shopping malls, in all the years I lived in Chennai, it was only the rare hole-in- the-wall electronic store in Egmore’s Fountain Plaza or Mount Road’s Spencer’s Plaza

32 Jonathan Sterne, ‘Sounds like the Mall of America: Programmed Music and the Architectonics of Commercial Space,’ Ethnomusicology, 41 (1) 1997: 22-50.

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that blasted film songs from a transistor radio. Malls and individual stores never played music. Now, here I was in 2016, witnessing a free live concert of popular film songs by a popular playback singer, Benny Dayal, within Chennai’s Forum Vijaya Mall.

Over the last decade, the Prestige Group has redefined the concept of shopping malls for consumers in major cities across South India with their Forum malls. Chennai’s

Forum Vijaya Mall was unveiled in 2013. The official website reads:

Ten years from where we started, we are ready to reinvent the way malls are designed. Today, Forum malls create a space where the modern Indian consumer’s needs for shopping, fun, recreation, intellectual stimulation and entertainment are met in a single universe. For people who cherish their homes and excel at the work place—here is the third place—Forum. Where you are ready to experience different dimensions to life, cultivate new interests, make new friends and shop for a new wardrobe; where fitness, creative exploration, culinary adventures and imaginative journeys await you. At the Forum you are at the epicenter, the most happening place in the city. You are a part of the circle. And the circle, which is the foundation of the new Forum logo, is an invitation to come and experience the third place.33

Beyond the typical locations for film song performance and production—the studio and the concert hall—the mall presents a third space. The open, deserted center space during the week was transformed into a jam-packed concert venue. The silent corridors of Forum mall boomed with Dayal’s voice and his accompanying band. Instead of malls as capitalistic spaces that pry on vulnerable consumers, here was a space where popular film musicians, their marketers and their managers had consumed, devoured the entire mall.

33 The Formum Mall website. Accessed August 3, 2016 http://www.forummalls.in/the-forum/.

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Project Triplet’s Gig at Phoenix Mall

While popular playback singers like Benny Dayal have opportunities to perform their hits and other popular film covers at Forum Vijaya Mall’s center, a competitor,

Phoenix Market City, hosts regular performances by amateur and self-taught musicians and standup comedians at their amphitheater constructed in the courtyard of the mall

(Figure 4-19). Dayal’s mall concert (with multinational company sponsorship and high- tech sound equipment held within the central location of the mall) juxtaposed against lesser-known or upcoming artists (who perform at the outdoor amphitheater of the mall with basic sound equipment) reinforces the hierarchies and status of performers in

Chennai.

Figure 4-19. Phoenix Market City’s Film Playback Singer Benny Dayal Performs Popular Film Songs at Forum Vijaya Mall February 6, 2106. Screenshot of website.

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In 2016, Phoenix Market City hosted a series of weekend gigs for self-taught musicians who typically perform covers of Anglo-American popular songs. Leveraging my association with them, Project Triplet (the Mazan sisters along with Achu) secured the opportunity to perform at Phoenix Market City’s amphitheater on March 13 (Figure 4-

20).

Figure 4-20. Poster from Project Triplet’s. Project Triplet’s Facebook page.

For Project Triplet, the gig would provide opportunities to widen their repertoire and gain access to networks with Chennai’s English-speaking upper-class, self-taught musicians. On their Facebook page, the trio described themselves as “an ethnic

Western band.”34 However, the trio had never performed in English within live settings; the only English cover they produced was Michael Jackson’s “You rock my world,”s and they were still editing Avril Lavigne’s “Let it go.” Vandana frequently expressed anxiety

34 Projet Triplet’s Facebook page. accessed 23 March 2018. https://www.facebook.com/projectTriplet/.

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about performing in English before a live audience: “My accent and pronunciation is not good.”35 Along with Alex, Project Triplet selected a list of twenty popular songs by singers that included Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, The Eagles, Led Zeppelin, Alanis

Morisette, John Legend, and Adele for a two-hour long concert (Figure 4-21). Since the organizers required the band to comprise five members, the sisters insisted I should be featured as the guest artists; they insisted I sing three songs.

Figure 4-21. Vandana playlist for Phoenix Market City gig.

35 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, March 2, 2016.

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My requests to rehearse with the band were met with excuses all week until the day before the performance. On the day before the performance, I scheduled a rehearsal time because of prior engagements. When I arrived at the studio to rehearse, none of the band members were present, except for Vagu. I waited for about two hours, but no one showed up. Vagu suggested they would practice my songs later. The next evening, I arrived at Phoenix Market City’s amphitheater as the band was setting up and doing a basic sound check. I performed with Project Triplet without a rehearsal (Figure

4-22).

Figure 4-22. Nina Menezes (Author) performs with Project Triplet at Phoenix Market City Amphitheatre March 13, 2016. Photo by Prabhu.

Compared to the programmed tracks for their lineup of songs, as well as the range of iPad apps Vandana used to enhance their performance, my accompaniment was stark and electro acoustic. It was then that I realized that all week long the band did not want me “to attend rehearsal” because Vagu was preparing tracks for their songs. I realized that while these musicians were bold and willing to jump in to the deep end, a

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tactic that got them far, in this circumstance they felt uncomfortable performing fully live, while wanting to give the impression of liveness. The painstaking effort they took to project an image of liveness both with the wedding gigs and this mall gig, reinforces how highly prized the perception of liveness is.

The Mazan Sisters’ Socio-Musical Formations

6MB

In April 2016, Vagu approached a group of her friends with her concept to volunteer for social causes through music. Brainard David, a bass guitarist, agreed to take on the role of co-founder, and Alex Samuel Jenito, a percussionist, volunteered as the Public Relations officer. Prabhu, a cinematographer by profession who had previously filmed and photographed the Mazan sisters’ work, volunteered to be the creative head. During their initial meetings, Vagu was full of ideas: “Indha project arambikkanum, indha velai arambikkanum, Facebook page arambikkanum (Let’s start this project, let’s begin with this work, Let’s start a Facebook page).” The Tamil word arambi, meaning ‘start’ or ‘new beginnings’ was so central to all their discussions, that they decided to call the group Aarambi. They designed their logo, 6MB (6 phonetically

‘Aaru,’ which sounds like Aaram). Vagu reminisced on their first campaign, “Quit

Smoking” (Figure 4-23):

Around eight of us musicians and other volunteers, gathered at Bessi [beach] and started playing music. In between songs, we would distribute pamphlets or make speeches about the importance of quitting smoking. As they heard us play, more and more people started coming near us to see what was going on. Within minutes, nearly 100 people surrounded us and were cheering for the cause! This gave us the confidence to pursue our other campaigns.36

36 Arpitha Rao “Giving Back Through Music,” Deccan Chronicle, May 24, 2016, https://www.deccanchroni le.com/entertainment/music/240516/giving-back-through-music.html (accessed March 13, 2018).

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Figure 4-23. 6MB’s ‘Kill Smoking’ Campaign at Besant Nagar Elliot’s Beach, April 11, 2016. Photots from 6MB Facebook page.

With assistance from philanthropists on April 22, June 5 (World Environent Day), and

June 19, 6MB organized tree planting events around the city. In May, medical professionals joined 6MB to arrange blood donation camps. In late October, doctors trained 6BM members with basic life support skills (Figure 4-24).

Figure 4-24. 6MB’s tree planting and basic life support events. Photots from 6MB Facebook page.

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6MB soon established a media presence: their Facebook page notified local Chennaites of events and campaigns, and their extended networks assisted with press coverage

(Figure 4-25).

Figure 4-25. 6MB’s multimedia presence. Photots from 6MB Facebook page.

At these events, 6MBians typically played and sang popular Tamil film songs. At the tree planting events, to commemorate World Environment Day on June 5, the group sang Michael Jackson’s “Heal the World.”

Tamil Film Song Cover Band Socio-Musical Formations

Musicological scholarship frequently neglects activities of local amateur and self- taught musicians and their socio-cultural formations. Self-taught musicians’ Tamil film song cover bands are frequently formed through social clubs and extensive networking.

Vandana and Vagu had opportunities to showcase their talent and grow their networks at an informal music gathering called “Terrace Jamming.” Terrace Jamming was an initiative started in February 2015 by Band Oxygen, a trio of male self-taught musicians

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and home studio owners. Their objective was to gather amateur and self-taught musicians on the rooftop of their apartment complex every second Sunday of the month to socialize and participate in a jamming session of Tamil film music (Figure 4-26).

Figure 4-26. Terrace Jamming session where amateur and self-taught musicians showcased their talent and grew their networks. Photo Terrace Jamming Facebook page.

For potential bands, such an endeavor enabled them to scout out new talent for projects. For participants like Vandana and Vagu, Terrace Jamming widened their musical networks and collaborative opportunities. Unfortunately, on the second Sunday of April 2016, the time of year when most school students are busy studying for final examinations, a neighbor from the apartment complex complained to the police about the “noise pollution.” The police arrived on the scene and the event was forced to end abruptly. After the incident occurred, there were plans to conduct jamming sessions at the beach; however, the jamming sessions never materialized. Apart from the monthly

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Terrace Jamming session, Vagu and some of her friends frequently met in the studio for informal jamming sessions (Figure 4-27).

Figure 4-27. Jamming in the studio: From left to right Kiran (mridangam) Vagu (Acoustic guitar), and Brainard (on the bass guitar). Photo by author.

Since 2016, besides their involvement with Pranetra, AD and the Band, and

6MB, Vandana and Vagu formed and performed with duos, trios, and six to seven-piece bands: Mazan Duo, Project Triplet, Colour Chaos, Vox Chord, Nyaan, Crisp Capsicum, and South Stringers. The multiplicity of self-taught musicians’ small bands and the ephemerality of their membership are noteworthy. When each of these groups were formed, the name gave the group an identity for the single event or with the intention of long-term collaborations among musicians.

Once formed, a band’s repertoire and practice sessions depended on the line-up of musicians, as well as the availability and obligations of musicians. A band’s repertoire varied: while AD and the Band performed Tamil film cover songs, Pranetra was strictly a

Tamil film music instrumental cover band. Although most bands with which the Mazan

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sisters performed had a clearly-appointed leader, responsibility and leadership was distributed among members. For instance, although Achu was the founding member of the bands, who oversaw the economic aspects and chose musicians to perform for each event, it was Vagu who made most of the musical decision both during rehearsals as well as on-stage.

Factors that affected a band’s long-term viability and success were ongoing disruptions to practice sessions, internal politics, personal grudges, and squabbles over financial issues or the prominence of musicians. For some members, if remuneration initially appeared appealing, the terms later seemed unacceptable. Conflicting social engagements and not committing completely to rehearsals or projects posed constraints, particularly with a specific girl band. When the Mazan sisters worked with three other amateur female musicians for a performance at an exclusive club, Vagu complained about their lack of discipline and lack of commitment: “Nothing good can be accomplished with these girls. Hereafter, I’m only working with guys.”37 Efforts to retain members, agree on musical and non-musical decisions, maintain a working harmonious relationship among all, and keep up their enthusiasm were all dependent on individual personalities and their relationships to other members. Since organization was frequently informal and precarious due to members’ commitments, discipline, time, effort, energy, availability, and skill, these small bands had relatively short life spans and their memberships were susceptible to change.

37 Vagu Mazan, interview with author, March 27, 2016.

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Conclusion

This chapter focused on the sites and contexts for live performance of Tamil film songs: weddings, stage shows, and mall gigs. I traced the history for Tamil film song live performance to the 1970s when light music orchestras or troupes gained popularity, as well as the emergence of Usha Uthup, an upper caste female self-taught singer who made singing Tamil film songs more acceptable in public spaces for middle-class women, paving the way for contemporary women like Vandana and Vagu to navigate multiple spaces for cover performance.

Within the three contexts—weddings, stage shows, and mall gigs—for contemporary Tamil film song live performance, which the Mazan sisters navigated, I reveal their socio-musical formations, hierarchies, roles, and how they negotiate and collaborate with other self-taught musicians and music reality television Airtel Super

Singer musicians. Many of these live events have enabled female self-taught musicians like the Mazan sisters to fashion their identities and gain wider visibility. Within the last two years, Vandana and Vagu have had opportunities to perform with their live cover bands on a variety of cable television shows (Figure 4-28).

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Figure 4-28. Vandana and Vagu perform covers of Tamil film songs on poplar cable television music shows. Photo from Vandana’s Facebook Profile.

For Vandana, greater visibility with live bands within live settings and on mass media enabled Vandana to secure individual solo gigs on radio and television channels (Figure

4-29).

Figure 4-29. Vandana’s solo cover performance on popular Tamil radio and television shows. Photo from Vandana’s Facebook Profile.

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CHAPTER 5 TOWARD A PEDAGOGICAL THIRD SPACE: A FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIAN EMPOWERS AMATEUR SINGERS

Scholarship on transmission and acquisition of Indian music typically focuses on

Carnatic and Hindustani music traditions.1 Rolf Groesbeck highlights that central to these traditional pedagogical processes is the guru–shishya parampara (teacher- disciple lineage), an elaborate ritual of instruction wherein “one learns in part by mimicking one’s teacher.”2 It is a bond that is built through full immersion, one of

“complete devotion extended from being absorbed in the guru’s music to being absorbed in his entire household.”3

By contrast, the legacy of popular Tamil film songs is marked neither by such a bond nor by a history of pedagogy. Frequently referred to as ‘light music,’ Tamil film songs consumed by the masses as music for easy listening or merriment, has traditionally been perceived as having little aesthetic or cultural value, and therefore, unworthy of serious learning. However, learning through immersion and by mimicking, observed by Groesbeck in traditional Indian music is also central to learning popular film songs. One of the aims of this chapter is to uncover and describe how amateur and self- taught musicians in Chennai acquire musical competency to perform this highly hybridized popular music repertoire, which has been an unexplored area of research.

As hybridized musical objects, Tamil film songs form part of the daily soundscape of Chennai city life. As I discussed in Chapter 1, growing up in Chennai, I was

1 T. Viswanathan, and Matthew Harp Allen. Music in South India: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

2 Groesbeck in Richard Wolf Theorizing the Local: Music, Practice, and Experience in South Asia and Beyond. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 143.

3 Amanda Weidman, Singing the Classical, Voicing the Modern, 249–50.

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accustomed to hearing film songs disseminated via cassette and radio technology at street corners, from moving vehicles, and from tea and coffee stalls. Socio-cultural events, competitions, festivals, and celebrations called for re-enactments of film songs.

No social or cultural event was ever complete without people, young and old, dancing and singing to a compilation of film songs.

Immersion in such an organic musical culture unconsciously shapes one’s musical experiences and cognitive processes of musical elements. Through

“listenership,”4 children begin to identify melodic structures,5 and as they grow into adulthood, these rudimentary melodic skills develop into a specific knowledge of musical phrasing, rhythmic structures, and intonation.6 In addition to musical elements, acquisition of culturally specific knowledge concerning notions of gender and gender roles, body movements and speech patterns occur.7 Beyond these unconscious processes of enculturation, ethnomusicologists observe how youth around the world learn popular songs through conscious strategies of listening and imitating.8 Self- identified amateur and self-taught musicians I interviewed in Chennai, particularly, those who perform covers of popular film song within recorded and live contexts, described

4 David Elliott, Music Matters: A New Philosophy of Music Education (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

5 Laurel Trainor, and Sandra Trehub, “A Comparison of Infants’ and Adults’ Sensitivity to Western Musical Structure,” Journal of Experimental Psychology, Human Perception and Performance, 18, no.2 (1992):394–400.

6 Jay Dowling, “The Development of Music Perception and Cognition.” in The Psychology of Music, 2nd ed., ed. Diana Deutsch. (New York: Academic Press, 1999) 603–25.

7 Timothy Rice, “Time, Place, and Metaphor in Music Experience and Ethnography,” Ethnomusicology, 47 (2003):151-179.

8 Andy Bennett, Barry Shank, and Jason Toynbee, The Popular Music Studies Reader (New York: Routledge, 2006).

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their learning process for popular film songs as listening to, observing, and imitating their favorite film playback singers, musicians or composers. In the following section, I describe the learning trajectories of self-taught musicians Vandana and Vagu, as well as amateur musician, Shantha.

During my interviews with Vandana and Shantha, I identified features of Michael

Eraut’s non-formal learning strategies9 in their musical learning processes. Eraut’s model for non-formal learning distinguishes three levels of intention: implicit, reactive, and deliberative. Implicit learning occurs unconsciously, without any attempts or awareness that learning has occurred. Reactive learning is unplanned learning that occurs in reaction to informal feedback; it occurs without set goals or reflection. In contrast, the third level, deliberative learning, requires a set time and clear goals aimed at achieving results. Drawing on Eraut’s model, this chapter demonstrates how self- taught and amateur learners develop their musicality from implicit, to reactive, and finally, deliberative learning. While one might argue that amateur and self-taught musicians follow similar pathways to learning, I argue that focused, deliberate learning strategies at a younger age facilitated Vandana’s accelerated self-regulated learning, which proved crucial to her positioning as a professional musician and instructor to amateur learners like Shantha.

Self-taught Musician Vandana and Vagu’s Non-formal Learning Process

Vandana describes her musical acquisition as an implicit social process that emerged naturally and unconsciously:

9 Michael Eraut. “Informal learning in the workplace: evidence on the real value of work‐based learning,” Development and Learning in Organizations: An International Journal, 25, no. 5 (2011): 8-12.

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My dad is not a trained musician, but he has a good voice. He can sing very well in the folk style. When I was young, I grew up listening to both him and my mom singing a lot of film songs. As I started to listen more and more songs I also began singing. My mom would encourage me a lot. She was my biggest fan. You know, she was the one who would hold my hand and take me for all the school competitions. She would stand in the corner of the hall and would be clapping for me. Nina, the real reason for me being a singer today is all because of her encouragement and support. No one else supported me like she did.10

In addition to Vandana’s mother, other gatekeepers included schoolteachers who provided opportunities to develop her musical talent:

You know, everyday a group of my classmates stood in front of everybody in our prayer hall in the morning and had to lead the other students in the prayer songs. When the students had to learn songs, my teachers would tell me that I have a nice voice and they made me teach everyone. At these times, I found out I had something special that is lacking in other amateur singers.11

As Vandana became more aware of her voice and its potential, encouragement from gatekeepers proved indispensable to her learning.

After Vandana’s mother passed away, financial constraints compelled Vandana’s father to form a light music troupe, Dhivyaraja Shruthi, with his daugthers and other hired self-taught musicians. The troupe performed live renditions of popular Tamil film songs to live audiences, typically at “non-upper-caste” Hindu weddings. The three sisters had opportunities to explore their voices and gain live performance experience.

However, unhealthy comparison and competition among them, along with the demand for live instrumentalists, found Vagu rejecting the conventional gendered role of singer; she began teaching herself how to play the guitar. Vandana recounted that although her

10 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, February 13, 2016.

11 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, June 14, 2016.

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voice outshone her elder sister, Vidya’s, frequent bickering between them over the role of lead singer, as well as Vandana’s competitive desire to play an instrument, prompted her to experiment with the keyboard.12 Moreover, rather than hire additional instrumentalists, the two younger sisters’ decision to move beyond the traditional gendered role of singer also fulfilled an economic function (Figure 5-1).

Figure 5-1. Vidya (lead singer), Vandana (keyboard), and Vagu (electric guitar) performing with Dhivyaraja Shruthi at a wedding reception in Agarwal Sabha Bhavan, 2011. Photo from Dhivyaraja Shruthi website.

At this point, Vandana and Vagu engaged in more deliberative learning processes. They depended on available resources and listened to film songs on

YouTube, watched online tutorials, read blogs about the basic chord patterns and progressions, and whenever possible they observed live and recorded musician’s gestures and movements while performing. They relied heavily on audible learning, observation, emulation, and learning on the job—the same processes they employed to acquire knowledge and skill about sound production and studio construction.

Although the sisters gained confidence with live and recorded performance, they frequently found self-regulated learning inadequate. Both Vandana and Vagu sought out

12 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, June 14, 2016.

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knowledge from friends who were formally trained or had experience in traditional music and sound production. They supplemented their knowledge and experience by taking lessons with western, Carnatic, and Hindustani music instructors in the city. However, they seldom pursued traditional structured learning. Long, erratic hours of work in the studio, the demands of live performance and travel, as well as economic constraints hindered the sisters’ attempts to pursue regular, traditional, structured lessons. More importantly, it was evident that they simply rejected all forms of structured pedagogical processes that involved being taught. They demonstrated a strong preference for learning by doing through trial and error; they engaged in learning activities entirely under their control. I observed similar attitudes among self-taught popular musicians and sound producers in Chennai. Notably, self-taught musicians who pursue serious self-regulated learning develop different skills for learning and making music, skills which enable them to become professional musicians within and outside the Tamil film music industry.

The deliberative learning among self-taught musicians is specific and frequently project-based. For instance, when Put Chutney, a YouTube channel, commissioned the

Mazan sisters to produce a cover of a popular film song “Kannukul Kannai Vaithu” from

Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa (2010), Vagu wanted to produce a jazz version. Working on a commissioned cover due within a few weeks, she did not have time to learn the rudiments of jazz. Like most self-taught musicians who sample music from different traditional and popular music contexts, she turned to YouTube and started watching videos of international jazz performers; she even asked me for a list of recommended

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artists. With listening and re-producing musics from (un)familiar contexts, I frequently witnessed Vagu adopt a learning process of transference or “intermusicality.”13

Between their recording projects and live performance schedules, I taught the

Mazan sisters western music theory; they perceived this knowledge would be indispensable to their musical careers. After explaining why F Major required a B flat for a key signature, Vagu enquired: “Teacher, what will happen if I leave out the flat?” “Let me sing them both for you,” I said, before I demonstrated. “Do you hear the difference?”

She looked a little confused. From my previous encounters with Vagu in the studio, I had witnessed her draw on the concept of “intermusicality.” “Wait, let me sing the two for you again, slowly. Listen to the first one,” I said and proceeded to sing F lydian mode. “So, when you write a scale starting on F as the tonic and you leave it without a flat, it sounds like Kalyani raga (Example 5-1).

Example 5-1. Transcription of western F Lydian Mode (Ascending) and Carnatic Kalyani Raga (Arohanam). Author’s transcription.

13 Ingrid Monsoon Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996)

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Now let me sing the second one for you.” I demonstrated and continued to explain,

“When you add a B flat, you’ll hear F major or Śankarābharaṇaṃ” (Example 5-2).

Example 5-2. Transcription of western F Major scale (Ascending) and Carnatic Śankarābharaṇaṃ Raga (Arohanam). Author’s transcription.

“In western music, all major scales must sound like Śankarābharaṇaṃ; that’s why we use sharps and flats,” I explained. Vagu’s eyes widened and she squealed with excitement: “Wow, yay teacher!!! Now I understand. Let me try singing and writing the other scales.” While this instance exemplifies intermusical transference within a more structured learning context, Vagu adopted it frequently to make sense of unfamiliar sonorities she encountered within the studio or when she listened to music. By making connections, finding the overlaps between different musical elements, genres, and styles, Vagu developed an ear for drawing on eclectic sonorities.

The studio provided both sisters with a wide range of musical and sound producing skills. Vagu was more inclined to learning about new sonorities; she experimented with a variety of string instruments and chord progressions, adopting

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them in metamorphic covers. Vandana showed a stronger preference for experimenting with the voice in cover production, both hers as well as those of their studio clientele. A large majority of their studio clients were amateur singers who recorded covers of film songs sung to karaoke tracks for their social media profiles or as demo CDs for television reality competitions. Vandana proudly proclaimed that unlike other studio producers who merely assisted with recording, she went out of her way to work with clients’ vocal technique by offering them vocal tips and suggestions. She inadvertently confessed her motives to offer ways to improve their singing was aligned with extending studio time, which results in clients paying more. However, she claimed clients were unquestionably pleased with the finished product. Moreover, it was Vandana’s willingness to coach clients during a recording session, along with her affable personality, which drew a regular studio clientele; several started requesting voice lessons on a regular basis.

Vandana revelaed that under the watchful eye of her controlling father she initially hesitated to market herself as a vocal coach. Nevertheless, her urgency to gain personal, professional, and economic freedom from her family motivated her to be creative. She started to teach herself web development. By 2015, she furtively set up a professional website under her pseudonym, “Vasudha Theevra,” offering online Skype voice lessons on http://learn2singonline.com/ (Figure 5-2).

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Figure 5-2. Vandana’s website, http://earn2singonline.com under her pseudonym. Photo screenshot from website.

Although Vandana had neither taken voice lessons, nor had any experience teaching voice lessons, she curated testimonials from her studio clients for her website to market herself as an online vocal instructor (Figure 5-3). Until April 2016, neither the opportunity nor the pressing need to give online voice lessons ever occurred.

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Figure 5-3. Testimonials of recording studio clients curated on Vandana’s vocal coaching website.

Vandana’s attempt to create an online pedagogical environment was not a novel approach. Popular male playback singer’s eponymous Shankar Mahadevan Academy offers a full-fledged online music program and certification for prospective teachers in

Indian traditional and film music on his website https://www.shankara mahadevanacademy.com/ (Figure 5-4).

Figure 5-4. Playback Shankar Mahadevan’s eponymous Academy website: https://www.shankarmahadevanacademy.com/. Photo screenshot from website.

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Apart from such online programs, over the last decade, Chennai has witnessed the mushrooming of private light music coaching centers. Instructors in these local music centers typically possess degrees and/or several years of training and performance experience in Carnatic or Hindustani music. For example, Vinod Kumar, who owns and teaches at Tamil Light Music Coaching Center, traces his musical lineage to both of his grandfathers, Shri P. Narayanaswamy and Shri P. Vaidhyanathan, who were renowned nadaswaram artists from Palakad, Kerala. Vinod Kumar’s approach to teaching film songs combines their gurukulam (traditional school) approach, along with “progressive learning.” Vinod Kumar offers an hour-long, one-on- one voice lesson either in person or via Skype six days a week (Figure 5-5). On his online professional profile on Urban Pro, Kumar promises to “improve and develop your voice for TV Shows, Stage shows and Orchestra.” All you need to bring is any one of the following: a notebook and a pen, an Ipad or a tablet.

Figure 5-5. Vinod Kumar teaches students film songs at his Tamil Light Music Coaching Centre. Photos from website.

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Like Kumar, several traditional musicians offer popular Tamil film music vocal and instrumental coaching. Many of their students are amateur and self-taught musicians who seek out training in their quest to find fame in Tamil film music production. A large majority of students who flock to these private instructors aspire to participate on the music reality television shows, which offer winners and runners-up contestants a direct pathway into Tamil cinema.

In their attempts to build a pedagogy for Tamil film music, these traditional music educators like Kumar frequently combine traditional Carnatic or Hindustani vocal pedagogy with self-regulated methods. For instance, Vinod Kumar capitalizes on the music reality television shows phenomenon by fostering a rich pedagogical environment for his students. Kumar provides opportunities for students to create portfolios, demo

CDs, singles or albums, and to participate in competitions and live-music events. He allows flexibility in his curriculum, allowing students to pick part of their repertoire, which makes lessons more enjoyable. The ability to provide students with flexibility and structure, equip them with musical techniques and the knowledge to create and participate in both recorded and live settings is an attractive feature offered by contemporary popular Tamil film music coaching centers.

By mid-March 2016, Vandana’s studio clients repeatedly requested her to train their voices. Vandana’s desire to start a family of her own compelled her to consider giving one-on-one voice lessons within the recording studio despite any potential objections from her father concerning her use of the studio for personal gain. Drawing on her own live and recorded experiences, as well as information from the Internet, and the techniques she learned from a local western music instructor, Vandana started

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giving voice lessons to students by mid-March. She envisioned that teaching within the studio would not only bring her a personal income, but also inspire students to record more songs, thereby bringing in a steady studio income through cover production. While

Vandana had successfully negotiated with her father in the past, her father and sisters objected to what they perceived as her taking advantage of them for her personal gain.

On April 1, when Vandana’s family forced her to break up with her boyfriend and discontinue her personal projects, she decided to leave her family and move into the women’s hostel a few streets down the road. Without access to a professional space of her own, Vandana now had to consider novel ways to accommodate her existing voice students. Notions of public and private spaces in contemporary Chennai still articulate gender relations. While many women do enjoy the freedom to explore public space, not all are free from the patriarchal ideological boundaries that still operate when navigating public arenas. Vandana chose to tutor her female students within the confines of their domestic spaces, more specifically, within the confines of their bedrooms, away from the distractions of domestic activity or spaces accessible or inhabited by male family members (Figure 5-6).

Figure 5-6. Vandana taught female students within their domestic settings (bedroom). Photo by author.

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Traditional norms of female respectability also prevented her from teaching male students within their domestic settings. The only male student who received lessons from Vandana within the privacy of his room was physically challenged. When Vandana realized he was more interested in her than in lessons, she stopped teaching him.

Vandana taught male students within open, public parks (Figure 5-7 left). On one occasion, when one of her male students arrived late for his lesson and the park was closing for the morning, Vandana led us to a restaurant across the street where she conducted the lesson, followed by brunch (Figure 5-7 right).

Figure 5-7. Vandana teaching male students in public spaces – park (left) and restaurants (right). Photo by author.

In Tamil cinema and popular culture, the trope of a single young man and woman in a park typically evokes images of secret, forbidden love. Colonial attitudes that stigmatized public female performers, indexing them as loose, immoral women, still bear resonances today.14 Not surprisingly, one of Vandana’s male students, awkward

14 Davesh Soneji, Unfinished Gestures: Devadasis, Memory, and Modernity in South India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).

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about the new arrangement, suggested she teach in her studio. Vandana had no intention of revealing details concerning her private life to him; she assured him she was in the process of establishing her own studio space and requested his patience for a few months. Furthermore, she explained singing in parks would instill in him the necessary confidence to perform in public.

There is, then, the notion that singing lessons were not merely defined by a musical goal, but also by notions of space, place, and the accompanying gendered, cultural meanings attached to them. The implication of place and space are of great importance to a young, middle-class, mixed caste, female instructor like Vandana. As

Vandana attempted to create a space of her own to gain professional independence, and as she navigated private and public spaces based on the gender of her students, she had to simultaneously ensure her own respectability. In attempting to challenge or transcend ideological restrictions of private and public space with male students, she witnessed the awkward tensions, the struggles to adhere to tradition, and her desires for modernity. However, spaces of music-making are frequently social spaces inhabited by both genders. For a woman like Vandana to inscribe her body within spaces like a park, recalls third space feminist scholar’s observations of women reclaiming and carving out a space of their own within public domains.15 Vandana’s negotiation between the demands of her individual freedom and her need to create a flexible teaching space resonates with what Gloria Anzaldúa’s calls “the border into a wholly new and separate

15 Gloria Anzaldúa in Adela C. Licona. Zines in Third Space: Radical Cooperation and Borderlands Rhetoric, (New York: University of New York Press, 2012), 1-10.

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territory.”16 It is a process which enables a young woman to carve out a space that serves her individual needs.

Between April and July 2016, I observed Vandana navigate these private and public spaces teaching ten amateur singers—seven young women and three young men between the ages of 18 to 40—within Chennai city and the suburbs. Two men held professional day jobs as computer programmers or electrical engineers in reputable firms in the city while one operated his own business from home. Four of these women students—a homemaker, a doctor, and two college students—came from wealthy socio- economic family backgrounds. The remaining middle-class women comprised two college students, and Shantha, who works at a local, multinational software company.

Amateur Musician Shantha’s Non-formal Learning Trajectory

I first met amateur singer, Shantha, at her voice lesson with Vandana in April

2016. Shantha is a middle-class brahmin in her early twenties. Like most young women from her socio-economic background, Shantha pursued a steady, well-paying profession that brought in a steady income. She completed a degree in computer engineering and secured a successful career in one of Chennai’s leading software technology firms. Long working hours and lengthy commutes to work left her yearning for something more than just a regular nine-to-five job. Like most contemporary youth,

Shantha expressed her desire to pursue a creative, more fulfilling career as a playback singer in the film music industry. With no formal musical training, she described her learning process of film songs like that of other amateur singers; she listened to and

16 Adela C. Licona, Zines in Third Space, 1-10.

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imitated her favorite playback singers. She took advantage of every opportunity to participate in music competitions at school, college, and more recently her office talent shows. During my interview17 with Shantha, I identified features of Michael Eraut’s three, non-formal learning strategies. Based on Eraut’s three non-formal learning strategies, the following section described how Shantha developed her musicianship from “implicit,” to “reactive,” and finally “deliberate” learning (Figure 5-8).

Figure 5-8. Model of Shantha’s Learning Trajectory Based on Eraut’s Typology of Non- Formal Learning (2004).

Phase one. Shantha grew up in Chennai, immersed in a Tamil Brahmin home filled with popular film music. Her parents, who were avid film music fans, encouraged her talent and passion for singing at an early age. During these initial years, she described learning as implicit, that which occurred unconsciously and naturally. She listened passively to film songs, hummed, and sang along. Family and friends

17 Shantha, interview with author, May 4, 2016.

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recognized her talents; their encouragement and support were crucial to her development as a singer.

Phase two. As Shantha began participating in school and collegiate competitions, family and friends provided feedback and advice on her singing, which became an indispensable component to self-learning. Receiving and reacting to feedback on how to “reduce and increase the pitch and volume,” and “select softer, more melodious songs”18 made Shantha more aware of her voice and its potential. In this reactive learning phase, her learning was unplanned; she did not set major goals, nor did she reflect or engage deeply with the music or musical elements. “If there was a competition, I would select my favorite song and sing it again and again until I thought it sounded good.”19

Phase three. One evening in December 2015, Shantha’s father returned from his walk with great excitement; he had discovered the Mazan’s Velachery D-studio in their vicinity. For Shantha, the news meant she was one step closer to her dream. In

January 2016, Shantha recorded her first Hindi film cover songs for her social media network profiles (Figure 5-9).

18 Shantha, Interview by author, May 4, 2016.

19 Ibid.

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Figure 5-9. Shantha’s cover of Hindi film song ‘Tenu Samjhawan’ from Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania (2014) on Facebook (left) and YouTube (right). Screenshot from Shantha’s acebook profile and YouTube video.

During her recording sessions with Vandana, as Shantha received “vocal tips,” she realized that feedback from family and friends alone was insufficient if she wanted to seriously pursue a professional singing career. More recently, she relied on easily accessible resources on the Internet—blogs and YouTube videos. “Before and after work, whatever free time I have I keep singing. I want to improve my voice. I want to participate in reality shows.”20 With great ambition she felt the need for more regulated learning. “I want proper guidance, so I asked Vandana to train me.”21 With Vandana’s assistance, Shantha’s learning strategies were more deliberate. She had clear goals aimed at achieving weekly results. She structured rehearsals, and also monitored and reflected on her weekly practice sessions. The following section describes the

20 Shantha, interview with author, May 4, 2016.

21 Ibid.

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deliberative learning strategies Shantha adopted within lessons and outside her one-on- one lessons with Vandana.

A Voice Lesson with Shantha and Vandana

April 3, 2016

1:20 p.m. I am in an autorickshaw, on my way to Velachery, a few streets away from D-studio. Vandana invited me to attend a voice lesson with one of her students, Shantha. The autorickshaw speeds past the main road and on to the by lanes. The autodriver misses the turn. We are lost. I call Vandana and tell her I have missed a turn and will be there shortly. “Nina, I just got here only. Come, come. You’re close by only,” she said. We hang up. After a few rounds around the block I have spotted the street and direct the auto rickshaw driver.

1:30 p.m. We have arrived at a white block of apartments. The street is quiet, a sharp contrast to the busy main road. The only noises are a crow cawing from a nearby tree in the heat of the midday sun, and the sound of the rickshaw engine. I pay the autorickshaw driver. The white, freshly painted four-story apartment building is quaint, with a narrow staircase. I reach the third floor. As I enter the living room, Vandana, Shantha and Shantha’s mother greet me. I am still standing in the doorway, but Shantha’s mother, the typical, proper Tamil hostess enquires, “Eṉṉa cāppiṭuṟīṅga? (what will you have to eat or drink?).” I had lunch just before I left, but it would be an insult to refuse anything. So, as is customary in such situations, like an equally proper guest, I ask for a glass of water. It’s 40 degrees centigrade outside. I gulp the tall steel tumbler of water down in one shot and ask for another muttering how hot it is outside. In the living room, a television set shoved into a corner is blaring Tamil film songs. Close to it is a coil spring couch. On the opposite corner, Shantha’s brother, seated by a home computer, dressed in a white sleeveless cotton banian (vest) and a lungi (south Indian sarong worn by men) has a huge set of headphones on. He is busy immersed in programming something. Shantha’s mother asks him if he’ll have something to eat or drink, he curtly responds in the negative.

1:45 p.m. Shantha’s mother suggest her bedroom would be a quiet and cool place for us to have our lesson, free from any distraction; she ushers us past the living room into Shantha’s bedroom and turns on the air conditioner. The bed occupies, most of the space; Vandana settles down on it. Shantha drags a plastic chair from her computer desk and slumps into it. The lesson begins.

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Figure 5-10. Shantha’s voice lesson with Vandana. Photo by author.

Although Vandana is a novice teacher, she placed herself at the center of the pedagogical process. She played the dominant role during the voice lesson by assuming confidence in her body language and tone. Vandana began by asking

Shantha questions concerning the basic mechanics of singing. “So, tell me the process of singing? How do you start singing?” When asked this question on their first lesson, most of Vandana’s amateur, mediocre students unsure about the response frequently joked to “save face.” Typical responses began and ended with an awkward giggle and

“First we take a deep breath from the mouth” others would say “Of course, we breathe from the nose.” Shantha, however, demonstrated her prior research on diaphragmatic breathing. Vandana was caught by surprise; Shantha was better prepared than she was for the first lesson: “Seri (alright), very good!” Not wanting to get into a deep discussion over the mechanics of singing, Vandana quickly changed the subject. Observing

Shantha slumped in the in the plastic chair, she said, “Ok, now stand up! When singing it is important to observe the correct posture, only then your voice and what you’re singing will come out properly.” Shantha shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other

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until Vandana adjusted her posture. “Ok, remember to maintain this posture while singing,” Vandana advised (Figure 5-10). “So, can you tell me the basic problems in your singing?” Shantha’s response was instant: “I am not able to reach high pitches and sustain long notes.” “Ok I will teach you some exercises to help you with that,” said

Vandana and proceeded to demonstrate: breathing exercises, vocal warm-ups, lip trills, scales, and arpeggios. Shantha emulated her.

Vandana then proceeded to give Shantha a contemporary film music history lesson. She talked about contemporary directors in the industry and their individual musical styles until the hour-long lesson was over. She asked Shatha to choose a song and work on it for her next lesson. “Ok, and don’t forget to do these exercises for half an hour daily before you sing,” she instructed as she ended the lesson.

Vandana had learned these vocal exercises and warm-ups from a few western voice lessons, which I observed her take with a local instructor in the city. She was also taking voice lessons with a local Carnatic music instructor in the suburbs. Considering film songs are a hybrid genre, which frequently combine popular western and Indian traditional vocal techniques, it was a little unusual to observe her focus solely on western techniques. Particularly, since film musicians frequently adopt Carnatic terminology to communicate their musical ideas within and outside the film industry.

Vandana could have opted to combine Carnatic swara ‘Sa-Pa-Sa’ (Do-So-Do), an exercise that focuses on breathing and breadth control. Vandana’s choice to include western music technique seemed like an attempt on her part to infuse an exotic element to the lesson. It was part of her self-presentational strategies to appear more knowledgeable and position herself as a professional musician and instructor. She

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inadvertently confessed to me that breathing exercises and warm-ups served as time- fillers during a lesson. Furthermore, to bridge this disconnect between her choice of western vocal warm-ups and her choice of Tamil film repertoire, she frequently emphasized, “I don’t teach any particular genre, I teach you how to use your voice.”

Like an actor in a theatrical performance, Vandana juggled multiple roles—stage performer, studio sound producer, voice instructor—stepping in and out of them. As I followed her students’ voice lessons, I witnessed how real, fluid, and naturalized the roles were to her. Theatrics were occasionally part of a voice lesson. On one occasion,

Vandana asked for a toothpick to demonstrate an unusually wide mouth position (Figure

5-11).

Figure 5-11. Vandana demonstrates mouth position with a toothpick. Photo by author.

Like a trickster, Vandana played with the notion of who everyone thought she is or should be. She made herself “hard to pin down.”22 As Meintjes observed among black music makers within the South African industry, “trickstering virtuosity,” or performance,

22 Louise Meintjes, Sound of Africa!: Making Music Zulu in a South African Studio (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), 38.

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becomes a marker of identity. In a system that either fails to recognize or make space for their talents, marginal people are “forced to find the loopholes as a means of survival.”23 Similarly, Vandana’s self-image and reputation as a professional depended on such theatrics. At the time, Vandana engaged in a transmission she perceived was best for herself and her students; there were times when she was unable to control the process. However, it cannot be discounted, she passed on what she knew and gave

“life to new performances and… [in doing so was] implicated in the transmission of a tradition.”24

Each lesson began with half an hour of breathing exercises and vocal warm-ups.

Depending on how much progress they made with the vocal exercises, students spent the rest of the one-hour lesson working on a film song with Vandana. For her second lesson, Shantha chose to work on a contemporary Tamil film song, “Neeyum Naanum,” from Naanum Rowdy Dhaan (2015). While students typically had some amount of control over their choice of repertoire, Vandana frequently made suggestions or final decisions on the song, depending on the student’s vocal range and ability. Shantha typically sang the entire song and then worked out the problem sections with Vandana.

In subsequent lessons, Shantha’s vocal warm-ups were followed by an evaluation of her weekly practice sessions, which included the skill and learning outcomes she attained or the challenges she encountered.

23 Louise Meintjes, Sound of Africa!, 9.

24 Kay Kaufman Shelelemay in Ted Solis, ed., Performing Ethnomusicology: Teaching and Representation in World Music Ensembles (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004).

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To enhance learning outcomes during lessons and rehearsals, the focus was on improving breath control and maintaining accuracy in pitch and melody. To that end,

Vandana adopted a variety of contemporary digital online tools: 1) WhatsApp, 2)

YouTube, 3) Tanpura Droid, and 4) VLC player.

Figure 5-12. Vandana and Shantha rescheduling a lesson. WhatsApp communication shared with author.

Vandana required students to use their mobile phones to record their practice session to monitor daily and weekly progress. WhatsApp, a free smartphone application widely employed in India, provides digital and online users with the ability to send and

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receive instant text messages, voice clips, photos, and videos within individual and group conversations. Vandana employed WhatsApp as a mode of communication to connect with her students outside the classroom, which includes her scheduling (or rescheduling) of weekly lessons and sending reminders about assignments and tuition payment. Students were also required to use WhatsApp’s file sharing feature to submit weekly homework. In the above WhatsApp communication, Shantha shares a recording of her vocal practice sessions via the voice messaging facility. It also provides an example of rescheduling a voice lesson for that week (Figure 5-12). WhatsApp provided accountability for student progress and instant accessibility to Vandana’s feedback.

Practice Journal and Phone Recorder

Shantha maintained a daily practice journal. Along with the recording, she sent in a written evaluation of her progress and challenges during that practice session (Figure

5-13). Much of the value of recording and journaling for Shantha lay in the ability to assess and develop skills for critical reflection, identify strengths and weaknesses, and monitor progress.

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Figure 5-13. Shantha’s evaluation of her homework sent to Vandana on Whatsapp. WhatsApp communication shared with author.

YouTube

YouTube serves the function of a global social sharing site for online music videos and entertainment content. Despite the growing awareness concerning copyright infringement, the site serves as a repository for illegally uploaded distribution of Tamil popular film songs and has fostered an online participatory musical community for Tamil film songs and cover culture. Vandana and her students viewed YouTube as a platform to “teach and learn” music. She and her students accessed film songs and online instructional videos on vocal technique. Furthermore, as Vandana and Shantha produced covers of popular film songs, their recorded cover performances became part of the larger online community for creating, sharing, and interacting with online audiences (Figure 5-14).

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Figure 5-14. Vandana (left) and Shantha (right) share their film cover songs on YouTube. Screenshot from Vandana and Shantha’s YouTube covers.

Tanpura Droid

Figure 5-15. Tanpura Droid App. Screenshot from app.

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Tanpura Droid is a free web app that reproduces the continuous drone of a tanpura, a stringed instrument used in Indian classical performances. The app allows users to select primary and secondary pitches and alter the speed and volume (Figure

5-15). Vandana recommended students use the app for daily warm-up sessions. The app was particularly useful to those who had trouble identifying or staying on pitch.

Students also used the drone to practice problem sections of song repeatedly.

VLC Media Player

Figure 5-16. VLC Media Player. Screenshot from app.

VLC Media Player is a free audio-video player that works across various platforms (Figure 5-16). One of its special features enables users to slow down tempi of

MP3 files or YouTube videos. Users can also loop the entire song or a fixed section.

The reduced speed feature was particularly useful when learning a new song or practicing a difficult section. Vandana demonstrated how to use it: “First you need to open the YouTube video or MP3 in VLC Media Player. You should click on Menu, go to the advanced options and select ‘loop’ and then the ‘tempo.’ See, you can adjust the

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section and tempo however you like,” she demonstrated during one of her lessons

(Figure 5-17).

Figure 5-17. Vandana demonstrates how to use VLC in conjunction with MP3s and YouTube. Photo by author.

As she demonstrated how to use YouTube in conjunction with VLC, she added:

Ok, let me tell you the process of learning a song. When you select a song you like, keep listening to it again and again. Never, ever try to sing along with the recording. If you sing along you will imagine you are singing like the singer in the recording, but actually you sound completely different and you will keep singing that same way forever. So, remember to always listen to the song on VLC at a reduced tempo. Then only you’ll be able to hear all the notes clearly. When you are ready to sing, make sure you record your practice sessions every time you sing. Then, you need to listen to the original versions and see the difference. Take note of the places where you sound different from the original. Again, play the original on VLC at a slower tempo and repeat the phrases until you learn the song properly. Like this, Neeye kathukelam (You can teach yourself).25

A Third Space Pedagogy

Vandana’s suggestion, “Neeye kathukelam” (You can teach yourself), calls to mind the concept of ‘third space,’ which describes a space that bridges two constructs.

Within the pedagogical context, the term has been used to combine formal or informal learning strategies and spaces. However, Zeichner emphasizes that third space is

25 Transcript from Author’s footage of Shantha’s voice lesson with Vandana Mazan, April 15, 2017.

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where we discard binaries. Instead of looking for bridges between spaces, Zeichner suggests we encourage seamless movement of learning between formal or informal learning strategies. Mobile devices and tools have more recently assisted in making the transition between formal and informal learning, and the physical spaces of “home,” and

“classroom.”26

In the absence of a history of a pedagogy for popular Tamil film music, Vandana attempted to build a third space pedagogical “culture of collaboration.”27 This involved moving between western traditional vocal techniques and popular Tamil film music repertoire; it combined more structured learning strategies of repetition, along with modern mobile tools; and it incorporated the instructor’s feedback and simultaneously encouraged student’s interdependent, self-regulated learning. A collaborative third space pedagogical environment for learning is an approach that deliberately and consciously “centers itself on student thinking and lived experiences that exist outside the classroom.”28

In a third space pedagogical environment, students and instructors frequently demonstrate role-reversal.29 During one of her lessons, before Shantha began singing

“Neeyum Naanum” form Naanum Rowdy Dhaan (2015), she turned on her iTanpura

26 Zeichner, Ken “Rethinking the Connections between Campus Courses and Field Experiences in College- and University-Based Teacher Education” Journal of Teacher Education 61, no.1. 2010: 89-99.

27 Kris Gutiérrez, D., Baquedano-López, P., Alvarez, H. H., & Chiu, M. M. “Building a Culture of Collaboration Through Hybrid Language Practices.” Theory Into Practice 38, no.2 (1999); 88.

28 Susan. V. Piazza, “First Steps Toward Third Space.” Language Arts Journal of Michigan, 25, no.1 (2009), 20.

29 Stone, Lynda. D., & Gutiérrez, Kris. D. “Problem Articulation and the Processes of Assistance: An Activity Theoretic View of Mediation of Game Play.” International Journal of Educational Research, 46, no.1 (2007): 43–56.

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Lite app instead of Tanpura Droid, the app Vandana recommended. Vandana was amazed by how realistic the tones were. Shantha’s background in information technology allowed her to take on the dominant role; she began to list out the features of the app that made the iTanpura Lite app more appealing. Beyond her technological knowledge, Shantha also demonstrated a natural musical aptitude. As she continued singing the song, “Poga poga aeno neelum dhoorame” (As time goes by the destination seems unending), Shantha took a deep breath between “aeno” and “neelum.” Vandana interjected: “No rest, sing continuously.” Shantha repeated the line, singing it in one breath. Running short of breath on the last word, she sang “dhoorame” hurriedly. She continued singing, “En atcham aasai ellamae thalli pogattum. Enthan inbam thunbam ellaamae unnai saerattum” (I order my fears and hopes to move far away. All my happiness and sorrows are now yours). When she finished singing the phrase she smiled sheepishly and said, “That’s not in the original, I improvised.” Vandana marveled,

“Romba nallaa irukkiṟatu (That was very beautiful). That I like very much. Others [other amateur students] they can’t improvise by themselves, but your improvisation is naturally very good. Everybody can’t do it naturally.” Shantha smiled mischievously:

“Actually, I decided to improvise there because I had trouble singing the original.” They both laughed. At this point, Vandana took it upon herself to restore the power dynamics; she emphasized the need to, “Learn the original, then try and improvise. Indhe samallikurthe vellai yella ventam (Don’t try and dodge).” They both laughed again. In this manner, Shantha demonstrated moving in and out of her reliance on Vandana even during the lesson. She followed the role of a student when Vandana instructed, yet also demonstrated her expertise in her natural musical abilities. Learning within this third

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space context was “reciprocal, and distributed, leading to new forms of learning” 30 for both Shantha and Vandana.

The notion of third space may appear non-existent at times. As an interstitial space between teacher and student, between teacher, learner, and repertoire, it is the space where meaning is negotiated and constructed. When Shantha and Vandana work on a song, each strives to understand it and make meaning out of what they see, what it means to them, what it makes them feel. As they perform and record it and upload it for online viewers, they build up a community who create shared meanings among themselves. After a few weeks, when Shantha demonstrated she made progress and perfected a song, Vandana recommended she record it in the studio.

Vandana’s vision to create a vibrant learning environment for Tamil film repertoire involved combining interdependent and self-regulated strategies, coupled with feedback. When a song was fully polished, she encouraged her students to record it in the studio for online consumption for Tamil film song aficionados. The figure below illustrates the pedagogical model Vandana envisioned for her students (Figure 5-18).

30 Kris Gutiérrez, D. “Developing a Sociocritical Literacy in the Third Space.” Reading Research Quarterly, 43 no. 2 (2008):159.

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Figure 5-18. Vandana’s pedagogical model for teaching film songs

For Shantha, it was a great accomplishment to visualize her growth from an amateur singer to a cover artist. Unfortunately, Vandana had left home and no longer had access to her father’s studio. Shantha recorded the song with Vagu; the experience was not the same without Vandana’s guidance in the studio. Vandana frequently rescheduled lessons to pursue opportunities that yielded greater economic benefits.

With irregular lessons, her less ambitious students made no progress and lost interest in taking lessons. Vandana’s career as a vocal coach, however, was short-lived due to her own daily struggles and desire to become successful.

In August 2016, Shantha discontinued lessons with Vandana and enrolled for lessons with a Hindustani instructor. She continued to teach herself film song and drew on the on the tools and learning strategies Vandana and her Hindustani instructor provided. Shantha recorded many of her best cover songs on YouTube (Figure 5-19).

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Figure 5-19. Shantha’s Film Covers on her YouTube Channel. Screenshot from Shantha’s YouTube channel.

In Chennai, my interactions with Shantha occurred during her voice lessons with

Vandana. However, since I left the field in 2016, Shantha continues to keep in touch with me via WhatsaApp; she informs me of her progress and sends me recordings of her singing. In January 2018, Shantha got engaged, and was married in February. She sent me digital invitations and added, “Will be very happy to see you if you can make it!”

(Figure 5-20). Unfortunately, I was in Gainesville and could not attend her wedding.

Shantha’s WhatsApp messages over the last two years, as well as her personal invitation to her wedding, reinforced that my fieldwork was based on a “model of friendship between people rather than on a model involving antagonism, surveillance, the observation of physical objects, of the contemplation of abstract ideas.”31

31 Jeff Todd Titon, “Music, the Pubic Interest, and the Practice of Ethnomusicology,” Ethnomusicology 36, no. 2 (1992): 321.

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Figure 5-20. Shantha’s digital invitations to her wedding. Photo Shantha’s WhatsApp communication to author.

When Shantha took lessons with Vandana, she frequently talked about participating on music reality shows “for the exposure.” Since she discontinued lessons with Vandana, Shantha started taking lessons with a Hindustani instructor, and is hoping also to learn Carnatic music: “Now I realize I want a daily schedule of practice sessions. And I wish to see myself improve. After listening to many classical pieces, I feel like I want to study it more, and perform it, and enjoy it that way,”32 she messaged me. Shantha’s husband and his family appear to be fully supportive of her musical pursuits.

32 Shantha, WhatsApp message to author, October 31, 2018.

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Conclusion

The acquisition and transmission of Tamil film songs, like most popular music traditions has, until recently, largely been a self-regulated process. Vandana’s attempt to create a pedagogy for Tamil film music for amateur singers is by no means a singular effort. This chapter, based on ethnographic research and interviews with Vandana and

Shantha, provides models for self-taught and amateur musicians’ learning process for popular film songs. Michael Eraut’s model provided a framework to view how these musicians developed their musicality from “implicit,” to “deliberative,” and eventually to

“reflective” learners. Although amateur and self-taught musicians essentially draw on similar strategies and phases of non-formal learning, it is essential to point out three fundamental distinctions between amateur and self-taught learners. First, Vandana and

Vagu, who identified as self-taught musicians, appeared to engage in deliberate learning strategies earlier in their lives; their focused, intentional learning was tailored to the demands of the project at hand. Second, while amateur musicians appeared to be more open to structured learning, self-taught musicians have a strong preference for self-regulated learning, and frequently reject formal learning processes. Third, as self- taught musicians frequently navigate multiple spaces of music-making, their musical identities become more fluid. I frequently observed Vandana assess the people she encountered. She presented herself as a “professional” to her students and amateur clients in the studio; however, she identified as a “self-taught,” “independent musician,” and sometimes even an “amateur” based on her encounters with professional or more experienced musicians. Within the multiple pathways Vandana navigated such forms of self-identification reveal how important musical training is to the self-presentation and status of musicians.

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Finally, being part of an emerging tradition of pedagogy for popular music can be both satisfying and frustrating. In Vandana’s attempt to gain personal, professional, and economic freedom, she successfully drew and developed strategies for teaching Tamil film songs, a framework that resonates with third space pedagogy. This chapter also touched upon some of the challenges she encountered as a mobile, female, self-taught instructor, particularly those that relate to notions of female respectability. Finally, this chapter opens a space for further research among traditional private instructors who draw on third space pedagogy methods to teach Tamil film music repertoire in Chennai.

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CHAPTER 6 MUSIC REALITY TELEVISION SHOWS: A FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIAN COPES WITH REJECTION AND RE-INVENTS SELF

On April 1, 2016 it had only been three weeks since Vandana had established herself as vocal coach in her family owned-studio; many of the singers she trained had expressed intentions to participate on music reality shows. That morning, after Vandana left her family, home, and studio, and moved into a women’s hostel, she was confronted by the prospect of having to pay for living expenses without a regular source of income and professional workspace. Vandana started reaching out to her networks to gain freelance work. Seven days later, on the morning of April 8, Vandana sent me a

WhatsApp message: Achu (her drummer friend and collaborator) had presented her with a fortuitous opportunity (Figure 6-1).

Figure 6-1. Vandana reveals a potential opportunity to participate on Airtel Super Singer. Screenshot of WhatsApp communication from Vandana to author.

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Achu had recommended Vandana as a voice instructor to train a group of contestants on Airtel Super Singer Junior—South India’s most popular reality television show. She was excited about the greater visibility this opportunity would bring her: “Ppl will come to know that am a voice trainer,” she messaged me (Figure 6-1).

In the days that followed, Vandana’s path led me to the behind-the-scenes preparation for the filming of an episode on this music reality television show—a space for Tamil film song performance frequently overlooked as a site for cover performance.

For Vandana, this path would not only allow her to re-invent and explore her identity as a vocal coach, but would also lead her back to a space of tumultuous emotions and encounters she experienced a year earlier. In April 2015, Vandana had been one among the thousands of singers who auditioned for the senior version of Season 5.

Although she cleared two preliminary rounds, she was eliminated during the third, failing to qualify for the televised rounds of the show. Now in 2016, as Season 5 was ending, the opportunity to train and participate with the contestants on the junior version of the show not only intensified those previous experiences of rejection, but she would also have to contend with failure for the second time on a much larger platform.

Scholarship on music reality shows typically documents the rags-to-riches narratives of contestants; this chapter presents an alternate perspective. It draws on

Goffman’s concept of “cooling out” to offer an understanding of how Vandana employed various strategies to cope with rejection not once, but twice on the show to help her make sense of failure to persevere in her career. Before I describe Vandana’s experiences on the show and the strategies she adopted to cope, it is essential to situate the global phenomenon of music reality television shows within the Indian and

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local contexts. The section that follows, provides a brief understanding of Goffman’s concept of “cooling out,” as the conceptual lens for this chapter.

History of Music Reality Television Shows in a Changing India

Following neo-liberalization in India, Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa

Limited and business tycoon, Li Ka-Shing invested and launched Star TV channels in

1991. Initially, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Broadcasting provided much of its English- language based content. However, Star TV also included Zee TV, a Hindi-language channel, which made it India’s first local cable channel.1 One of the most popular shows on Zee TV Close-Up Antakshari (1993) was based on a simple social music game called antakshari.2 Three teams—Deewane, Parwane, and Mastane—competed against each other in a modified series of rounds based on the original game. While

Close-Up Antakshari remains the longest-running and most popular show, in 1995, Zee

TV also introduced SaReGaMa, a show that followed a simple format of popular musicians adjudicating contestants on their film song performances.

Over the last decade, the proliferation of local, privately owned channels, made way for the Idol franchise formats—Pop Idol (2001), American Idol (2002)—which set the scene for contemporary music reality television shows in India. However, it was

Sony Entertainment Television’s Indian Idol that changed the face of music reality

1 Yu-li Chang, “The role of the nation-state: Evolution of STAR TV in China and India.” 6th Annual Global Fusion Conference, Chicago, 2006. http://globalmediajournal.com/open-access/the-role-of-the-nationstat e-evolution-of-star-tv-in-china-and-india.pdf. (accessed July 12, 2017).

2 Antakshari is typically among intimate gatherings, long train and car rides during summer vacation, etc. with family and friends. The rules for the game are embedded in its name, ant (end) and akshar (letters of the Hindi alphabet): two opposing teams sing popular Hindi film song alternately; each team must instantly sing a song with the first word that begins on a syllable as the last syllable of the previous team’s song. If a team falters, the opposing team good-humoredly ridicules them.

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television in 2014 in India. If earlier shows sought to discover the best singing talentc,

Indian Idol promised to reward highly-talented singers who could project a commanding stage presence and performance. Moreover, the show also incorporated the rags-to- riches narrative of transforming ordinary individuals into celebrities. Furthermore, unlike other shows where the final decisions were based entirely on the judges’ votes, Indian

Idol incorporated audience voting via phone calls and text messages. Since the arrival of Indian Idol, cable television networks across each state have drawn on content and resources from their local, regional, language-based film music industries to successfully model or deviate from Anglo-American formats.

Music Reality Shows Produced in Chennai

Today, every privately-owned television channel produced in Chennai has its own version of a Tamil film music reality show; some of the most popular shows include the following: Star Vijay TV’s Airtel Super Singer (2006), Zee Tamil TV’s SaReGaMaPa

(2009), Sun TV’s Cadbury Oreo Sun Singer (2013), and Jaya TV’s Jaya Super Singer

South India (2014). Among this growing list of Tamil music reality television competitions each year, Airtel Super Singer is the longest-running and most popular show among audiences in South India and the Tamil-speaking diaspora. Since its premier on Star Vijay TV in 2006, Airtel Super Singer has aired five seasons, currently concluding Season 6. The show aims to discover the best amateur singing talent and launch the winner’s career as a playback singer in the film music industry. When the show first aired in 2006, contestants from Chennai, as well as cities and towns across the state of Tamil Nadu, competed against each other; today, contestants travel across the state from Kerala, as well as the Tamil-speaking diaspora. Bharti Airtel—India’s largest mobile service network company and the show’s main sponsor—facilitates a 239

democratic voting system. In addition to the show’s judges who cast their votes for contestants, studio audience and viewers cast 50% of the votes via text messages.

Moreover, Airtel Super Singer’s multinational company sponsorships provide lucrative prizes and rewards in the form of cash, gold jewelry, cars, and real estate. Other attractive features on the show include glamorous sets and local branded clothing store’s apparel for contestants, which ensure visually engaging and high-production value broadcasts.

The symbiotic relationship between the mainstream film music industry and Airtel

Super Singer is far more entrenched than other local Tamil channel reality shows. The panel of judges comprises popular playback singers, musicians, and music composers from the Tamil film music industry. Each week, judges and viewers cast their votes to eliminate the number of contestants on the show. With each consecutive round, contestants on the show gain exposure and fame as they earn cash rewards and luxury goods. Each season’s winner of the show is presented with the coveted opportunity of making their debut in Tamil cinema, works closely with a leading film music composer and records a Tamil song on an upcoming film. Winners of Airtel Super Singer are therefore offered a direct pathway into the industry. Nikhil Mathew, winner of Season 1

(2006) made his debut in Tamil cinema with the song “Enadhuyire” from Bheemaa

(2008). Nikhil not only worked with music composer Harris Jayaraj, but also received opportunities to collaborate with popular award-winning female playback singers,

Chinmayi, Sadhana Sargam, and Sowmya Raoh. Apart from receiving lucrative prizes, winners like Nikhil fulfill their life-long ambition of becoming playback singers.

Furthermore, Airtel Super Singer helps winners launch their live cover performance

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careers within India and the diaspora. Runners-up and other promising contestants also benefit from the show in the form of prizes, as well as opportunities to record a single and perform on live tours within India and abroad.

Participants and prospective contestants I interviewed revealed that their desire to participate on the show stemmed from their ambition to become the next Super

Singer—a title that would not only lead directly to the film recording industry, but also launch their careers as popular playback and live singers. For others, their chosen path was a deliberate move towards pursuing a fulfilling, creative lifestyle in lieu of a stressful, traditional career. And still others declared that the opportunity to perform on the glitziest, most-sought after music reality show for Tamil film music was not only prestigious, but also provided rewards and recognition from legendary film musicians who adjudicated on the show. Vandana’s observations from her preliminary audition experience in 2015 revealed:

Airtel Super Singer is definitely a very good platform for singers who do not have any influence in the field and for those who do not have any of their parents or anybody they know singing. They can definitely go and shine there. Most of them [contestants] couldn’t sing. They wanted to show their face at least once on TV. That is the reason why they came for the audition. But definitely, there were so much of talent that came on that day. It is very difficult to choose the best out of them3

Vandana’s insights that the music reality show provides amateur singers, without musical training or connections in the industry, a platform to acquire wider visibility and success, recalls ethnomusicologist Katherine Meizel’s observations that reality shows not only have the potential to transform ordinary individuals into stars,4 but also that

3 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, February 17, 2017.

4 Katherine Meizel Idolized: Music, Media, and Identity in American Idol. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011)

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there is very little at stake for unsuccessful contestants. As described earlier, runners-up on the show are rewarded and promised as much fame as winners. And unsuccessful, rejected candidates gain just as much visibility on the show. If reality shows perpetuate the notion that failure is individual, they also promote the idea that an individual’s success is possible through embodying neoliberal principles of self-discipline, enterprise, and productivity.5 Within the context of American Idol, Katherine Meizel observes, “in the end, losers sell just as well as winners;” mere talent does not sell; contestants need to authenticate an understanding “of the American Dream—obligatory ambition, individuality, and the necessity of failure in the process of achievement.”6

While it may appear that there is little at stake for unsuccessful contestants, given that opportunities to appear on television, gain fame, or win attractive prizes outweigh the drawbacks of failure, nevertheless, contestants—along with family and friends—participate with the belief in their innate talent and ability to succeed.

Furthermore, competition inherently elicits comparison, and failure not only shatters contestants’ sense of self, but also makes them doubt their ability as singers and musicians. In order to better understand how Vandana coped with failure on the show, I turn to Erving Goffman’s concept of “cooling out.”

5 Andrew Barry, Thomas Osborne, and Nikolas Rose, “Liberalism, Neo-liberalism and Governmentality: Introduction,” Economy and Society, 22 no. 3 (1993): 265-266.

6 Katherine Meizel, “Making the Dream a Reality (Show): The Celebration of Failure in American Idol” Popular Music and Society. 32 no. 4 (2009): 475.

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Erving Goffman’s Concept of “Cooling Out”

In his article, “On Cooling the Mark Out: Some Aspects of Adaptation to Failure,”7

Goffman examined how a “mark,” or a victim of a confidence game, learns to adapt to loss and failure— a process he calls the “cool out process” or “cooling out.”8 After encountering loss, rejection, or failure, a person exercises “the art of consolidation, [by] defining the situation in such a way to make it easy to accept the loss, the failure…”9

However, there are instances when these individuals may feel the need “to explode, to break down, to cause a scene, to give full vent to his reactions and feelings, to “blow his top,” which serves a cathartic function.10 Some might even resort to “telling off the boss,” as a last resort to regain composure and prove that they were never really interested in attaining the prize, position, or status. There are other instances when people who have encountered failure rationalize and entrust “‘the task of cooling out’ to a friend and peer.”11 They try to convince themselves and others that they have outsmarted the system. Cooling out strategies and techniques frequently allow those who have experienced failure and rejection to retrace their journey and qualify for the same role at which they failed. In doing so, rather than be branded a loser or a failure, these individuals save face and restore a positive sense of self.

7 Erving Goffman, “On Cooling the Mark Out: Some Aspects of Adaptation to Failure,” Psychiatry 15, no. 4 (1952):451–63.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid., 492.

11 Ibid., 51–63.

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Goffman observes “cooling out” to be pervasive, self-conscious, and social practice. Scholars across multiple disciplines have drawn on Goffman’s concept to describe how individuals deal with disappointment, loss, rejection, and failure in different situations: students’ failures in higher education,12 sportspeople dealing with failure,13 men dealing with rejection at singles bars and night clubs,14 academic advising on students’ success,15 and teaching assistant experiences with special education needs in secondary schools.16

More recently, scholars have drawn on the concept to discuss American Idol contestants’ experiences of rejection when eliminated from the competition and the strategies they adopt to save face during preliminary auditions17 or during the broadcasted rounds of the show.18 The ensuing in-depth discussion in this chapter builds on these studies to focus on Vandana’s individual experiences. It expands the scope of previous research that deal with experiences of several American contestants

12 Burton Clark, “The ‘Cooling-Out’ Function in Higher Education,” The American Journal of Sociology 65, no. 6 (1960): 569–76.

13 Donald W. Ball, “Failure in Sport.” American Sociological Review 41, no. 4 (1976): 726–39.

14 David A Snow, Cherylon Robinson, and Patricia L. McCall. “‘Cooling Out’ Men in Singles Bars and Nightclubs: Observations on the Interpersonal Survival Strategies of Women in Public Places.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 19 no. 4 (1991):423–49.

15 Peter Riley Bahr, “Cooling Out in the Community College: What is the Effect of Academic Advising on Students’ Chances of Success?” 49, no.8. (2008): 704-732.

16 Teresa Lehane, “Cooling the Mark Out”: Experienced Teaching Assistants’ Perceptions of their Work in the Inclusion of Pupils with Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Secondary Schools” (2015)

17 Junhow Wei, “I’m the Next American Idol”: Cooling Out, Accounts, and Perseverance at Reality Talent Show Auditions,” Symbolic Interaction 39, no.1 (2016):3-25.

18 Lisa-Jo K van den Scott, Clare Forstie, and Savina Balasubramanian, “Shining Stars, Blind Sides, and ‘Real’ Realities Exit Rituals, Eulogy Work, and Allegories in Reality Television,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 44, no.4 (2015):417–49.

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within a single audition to explore Vandana’s unique experiences of coming to terms with rejection and failure not once, but twice, on Airtel Super Singer: first, at her preliminary audition, and then a year later, at her semi-final televised performance on the junior version of the show with the group of contestants who called themselves Lord

Labakdas. Within these two grassroots contexts, I describe the coping mechanisms, techniques, and strategies she adopted in order to preserve a sense of self and persevere in her career as a musician.

Vandana’s Preliminary Audition

Vandana’s Failure to Embody Tamil Values

Each season of Airtel Super Singer begins with an open call for auditions.19

Advertisements, posters, and promotional videos broadcasted via multimedia attract prospective contestants aged 15 and above from India, and more recently, within the

Tamil-speaking diaspora. Initial screening for Airtel Super Singer Senior Season 5

(2015) required amateur singers to submit a demo CD of themselves singing a Tamil film song or to attend two rounds of in-person preliminary auditions; Vandana chose the latter.

In the following excerpt from one of our interviews that took place almost a year after she auditioned, Vandana describes the procedures of the show following her submission of her application:

The day before the audition, they called and asked who I am, what I’m doing. So, I explained to them that I am a sound engineer. The next day I arrived at Chennai stadium. We had to stand in the hot sun with the crowds and get the ID card. Then you have to attend two rounds, which will take

19 Super Singer 5 2015 Audition and Online Registration, Accessed June 12, 2017. http://auditio ndate.info/super-singer-5-2015-audition-and-online-registration/.

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one whole day. It was such a tiring process. We were waiting, thousands of people were waiting in that big stadium.20

Successful contestants from the preliminary CD application process, as well as the in- person audition rounds moved on to a third, non-aired preliminary round held a few days later. As each of the preliminary rounds progressed, Vandana explained: “Slowly, slowly, slowly they increased [introduced] the stage, set, lighting, audience, judges, everything, even the band. And basically, the band in the beginning level will not be that professional and all. It will not be very good.”21 As each audition round progressed, the drab room was transformed into a set with a dazzling stage, stage décor, glitzy lights, and a live band. Along with these physical transformations, successful candidates who entered the audition room from their humble backgrounds were groomed to walk on to a stage in preparation of becoming glamorous celebrities. Vandana’s description attests to how crucial such transformations that occurred within this time and space were to the metamorphosis of ordinary singers into stars.

When contestants clamor to auditions every season, their individual journeys to stardom align with the Tamil cultural values embodied in the show’s format. As Vandana observed:

Very talented people, very humble, very simple people can find a place there. They [Airtel Super Singer] will not take people who already know something, who already have some influence in the media, or who are like little arrogant or can’t be so humble and down to earth. That kind of people don’t have a place there.22

20 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, February 17, 2017.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

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Vandana’s references to values of humility, self-restraint, and simplicity expected of contestants on the show is reminiscent of anthropologist Margaret Trawick’s observation that qualities such a self-restraint, simplicity, humility, and servitude are laudable virtues in Tamil culture. Trawick argues that these values form the moral and social fabric for social relations, as well as kinship structures.23 Within the context of the

American Idol, Katherine Meizel observes that successful candidates are those who authenticate values that align with the American dream.24 Similarly, Vandana intuitively observed that it was not mere talent, but the ability to embody Tamil cultural values of humility and simplicity that proved successful on the show.

Furthermore, of the many episodes I watched on television, when judges praised or offered feedback, contestants responded by bowing their heads and joining their hands in utmost reverence and humility. One contestant, overwhelmed by the praise from an iconic female playback singer, shed copious tears, bowed with reverence, and touched the feet of the singer as a sign of respect and gratitude. Contestants do not merely see themselves as celebrities on the show, but rather, see themselves as part of a larger social fabric wherein each individual is expected to embody and express Tamil cultural values.

Vandana emphasized, “the judges, they want people who are humble,” and then went on to describe how her audition represented a stark contrast to normative Tamil values:

23 Margaret Trawick, Notes on Love in a Tamil Family. (Oakland: University of California Press, 1992), 106-120.

24 Katherine Meizel, “Making the Dream a Reality (Show): The Celebration of Failure in American Idol” Popular Music and Society 32 no. 4 (2009):475-488.

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I made a controversy there. They thought I was unruly. I sang a song “Maduraikku Pogathadee;” it is a folk song,25 it should be fast. They [the band] were dragging it like anything. I signed [indicated] and I told them to make it fast. So, the judges asked me, “What’s the problem?” I told them they [the band] were making the song slow, so I wanted to make it fast. Then they [the judges] said: “no matter how the band performs, you should be presentable on stage. You should smile, sing it well, and present yourself professionally.” So, what can I do? I felt like they only told us [instructed us] to make them fast or stop and start. So, I did whatever I can. But it seems I was looking arrogant. But I’m not. I was simply telling them to make the song fast and nothing else. So, that’s why they rejected me.26

Vandana’s exchanges with the judges following her preliminary audition reveal the tensions between her expressions of individuality (pride and ambition in her musical ability, as well as in her desire to succeed) and the Tamil values (self-restraint, humility, and simplicity) that the show embodies. Vandana attributed her elimination to her own inability to exude these qualities that are conceptualized as inherently Tamilian. The following section describes specific techniques she drew on to come to terms with the judges’ evaluation of her performance.

Vandana Explodes, Causes a Scene, and Vents

In her interactions with the judges following her audition, Vandana did not accept feedback gracefully; she “blew her top,” and created a scene, or as she herself described it, “I caused a controversy.” Goffman suggests that “to explode, to break down, to cause a scene, to give full vent” is natural when encountering rejection.27 But for Vandana, this coping mechanism backfired and led to her elimination from the

25 The aural and visual musical elements, a fast-paced in 4/4 song with a ketti melam (percussion) and the nadaswaram (wind) ensemble accompaniment for a local temple festival scene in Maduraikku Pogathadee from Azhagia Tamil Magan (2007) is typically characteristic of a folk style in Tamil film music.

26 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, February 17, 2017.

27 Erving Goffman, “On Cooling the Mark Out,” 458.

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preliminary audition. In her retelling of the event to friends and family, as well as to me, her venting created as sense of catharsis. She entrusted us as her confidants to help her with “the task of cooling”28 her out.

Outsmarting the Judges

One of the “cooling out” strategies individuals frequently adopt when dealing with failure or rejection is to convince themselves that they have outsmarted the system.29

When Vandana recapitulated the series of events including exchanges between the judges and her, she reframed the cause for her failure:

It seems I was looking arrogant. But I’m not. Because I pointed out that the band was bad, they didn’t want to raise any controversy. Also, by that incident they came to know what kind of a person I am, that I will question and that I’m a sound engineer. I also realized that judges are only puppets. Since I’m a sound engineer, I can understand what all is going on there, but other common people will not know.30

Vandana attributed her failure to the judges’ misjudgment of her as being arrogant and overqualified (as a sound engineer). She also cites her own savvy awareness of the behind the scenes politics operating on the show. By reframing the exchanges concerning her failure to qualify, she convinced herself that she was superior to the system and that she had outsmarted the judges.

Judging Idiosyncrasies, Biases, and Controversy

If Vandana’s previous comments hinted at how politics played out during her audition, she went on to reveal more judging idiosyncrasies, and unfair organization procedures responsible for her elimination on the show:

28 Erving Goffman, “On Cooling the Mark Out,” 458.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid.

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I also came to know that the juries [judges] are literally puppets and they just listen to the director [of the show]. She is a very strong lady. I don’t remember her name... She is supposed to be everything there; nobody else has any power. Even the judges has to listen to her. Judges should obey her like anything. The judges will be having headphone in their ears and the director lady will be the one who is directing them: “Yes! Reject them, yes! They [the judges] have nothing to do. Out of three judges, one judge will be like getting the information from the director and he will be transmitting the information to the other two. What the director will tell, those are the things the judges has to do. This thing I found out that day.31

Like American Idol, over the years, Airtel Super Singer, has sparked and wreathed much controversy. Since Vandana’s preliminary audition, Season 5 contestants and audience members were enraged with unfair practices on the show.

Many viewers objected to the participation of Malayalee32 contestants; they believed the organizers were biased and favored certain Malayalee participants because of their connections to the show’s sponsorship.

The biggest controversy that hit the season was when viewers discovered that the winner, Anand was already an established playback singer in the industry. Anand had already been featured on ten film songs. Filmmaker Lakshmy Ramakrishnan argued “this cannot have happened without the channel’s knowledge,” and that such

“unethical practices have resulted in victimising not just Anand, but other participants and, of course, the audience, who spend time and money by sending SMSs to support talented youngsters.”33 Star Vijay TV was quick to declare that it was under no

31 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, February 17, 2017.

32 Malayalees, like Tamilians are a Dravidian ethnic group that originates from what is today considered the south western state of Kerala, the neighboring state to Tamil Nadu. Malayalees speak Malayalam, a language classified as part of the Dravidian family of languages. The syntax and semantics are markedly different when compared to Tamil.

33 Super Singer programme lands in controversy Udav Naig, online [accessed June 7, 2017] . 250

obligation to disclose a contestant’s connections in the industry to the public. Pradeep

Milroy Peter, the creative head at Star Vijay TV, further claimed there was no rule that playback singers should not compete in the show: “We don’t know why everyone is talking about this. In the first few years, we had the rule. But we don’t have such a rule anymore.”34 One of the judges on the show, playback singer, Srinivas, asserted that it was unnecessary and irrelevant to dwell on this information about Anand because he won the most votes unanimously.35

Despite these controversies surrounding judges’ biases, Vandana emphasized, “I will not say it is a very bad place; it is definitely a fantastic platform for singers who don’t have connections.”36 Furthermore, Vandana insisted that ordinary, simple, humble singers still have a chance to succeed based on their vocal skill.

Minimizing Significance

Another type of cooling off strategy occurs when individuals who have encountered rejection and failure attempt to minimize the significance of their investment in the event. In these instances, individuals console themselves by downplaying their involvement in their role or the event. Vandana focused more on the overall experience; she attached little importance to her investment in her role as a participant in the competition: “Yeah, it’s a very good experience. And I learned a lot of things and I met a lot of people who were so passionate about singing and so

34 Super Singer programme lands in controversy Udav Naig, online [accessed June 7, 2017] .

35 "Singer Srinivas speaks out, says audience wanted Anand to win," [March 22,2016], The News Minute. India online [accessed June 7, 2017] < https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/exclusive-singer-srinivas- speaks-out-says-audience-wanted-anand-win-40641>.

36 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, February 17, 2017.

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passionate about showing their face on TV. Lot of funny experiences happened there.

That’s it. I had a good time.”37 Multiple times she reiterated the competition was “just for the experience,” and “it was good fun;”38 this allowed her to take her failure and rejection less seriously.

Vandana further minimized her role and significance in the competition by emphasizing the show’s commercial nature: “It is literally a reality show, which they want to make money with common people. But what I feel is that they give priority to the people who they already know, those who are sellable, who they can use to project.”39

Yet another way was by acknowledging her fellow contestants’ talent: “I will also say that there are a lot of true talents, a lot more talents who are so bright and so talented than me. I am totally not worried about not get selected.”40 In this manner, Vandana consoled herself with the notion that her chances of making it to the final rounds of the season were only a remote possibility.

Vandana as Vocal Coach and Guest Performer on Airtel Super Singer’s Mini Series

A year later, toward the end of Season 5, in April 2016, organizers of Airtel Super

Singer Junior grouped their twenty-one finalists into teams of threes to compete in their final episodes of the show, a segment of the season called the Mini Series. During the first round of the Mini Series, judges placed team Lord Labakdas—comprising Yazhini,

Akilesh and Ajeedh—last (Figure 6-2). The second round of the Mini Series required

37 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, February 17, 2017. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid.

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each group to invite a singer or instrumentalist of their choice to work on a mash-up of

Tamil film songs behind-the-scenes and then feature their guest artist during the televised semi-final round performance. Through Achu’s recommendation, Lord

Labakdas invited Vandana as their guest performer.

Figure 6-2. Members of Lord Labakdas – Akilesh, Yazhini and Ajeedh perform for round one of Airtel Super Singer Mini Series. Photo Airtel Super Singer Season 5 Facebook page.

On the evening of April 8, Vandana sent me a WhatsApp message conveying her excitement that she would be participating on the show with Lord Labakdas (Figure 6-

3):

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Figure 6-3. Vandana’s excited about forthcoming participation on Airtel Super Singer. Screenshot of WhatsApp communication from Vandana to author.

Vandana’s exuberance, however, was short-lived. She expressed doubts about her involvement with Lord Labakdas because of concerns she had about the group’s internal politics. She feared that the “controversy” she caused at the beginning of the season in her own audition, could hinder her participation with the group. More importantly, she had to reckon with the fact that Lord Labakdas—with or without her participation—had only a very slim chance of redeeming themselves from their position in last place.

Goffman contends that the social stigma attached to a second failure can in some instances, make such individuals avoid taking the risk of participating or competing again.41 Vandana reasoned that performing with a team that was set up for failure could tarnish her reputation, and negatively impact her quest to become a professional musician. However, she also reasoned that their failure in the end could not be attributed to her alone, and the exposure she would gain by appearing as a vocal

41 Erving Goffman, “On Cooling the Mark Out,” 451–63.

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coach on the show outweighed the drawbacks of failure. She wanted to do her best and pinned her hopes on the remote possibility they would outperform another team.

Vandana accepted the challenge to train and participate with the group. For her, this chance would bring new experiences and connections, and cast her in the prestigious role as vocal coach and guest performer. She would also receive a small sum of money, but more importantly “Ppl will come to know that am a voice trainer”

(Figure 6-1). Setting aside the fear of failure, it was great ambition and future possibilities that provided Vandana with the strong impetus to return on Airtel Super

Singer. During the weekend, I witnessed Vandana rehearse with the team at the Vijay

TV office in Nungambakkam.

Lord Labkdas and Vandana’s Performance on Airtel Super Singer Set

On April 12, Vandana invited me to witness the filming of the Airtel Super Singer

Junior Mini Series Semi Final competition round at Prasad studio in Saligramam.42 The following section from my fieldnotes describes my experiences at the filming of the event that day:

April 12, 2016

It’s 3:30 p.m. on a hot summer day. I stand among a crowd of onlookers who witness the performance and filming of Airtel Super Singer Junior Mini Series in a large dark room within Prasad studio in Saligramam. The large dark space had once been an insulated recording room, where I had recorded soundtracks with Ilaiyaraja and his film orchestra during the late 1980s and 1990s. The floor and walls had been stripped of their carpeting. Where the orchestra and chorus once arranged themselves for a recording session now stood the Airtel Super Singer’s elaborate stage set. The set combined cool blue and mauve tones reminiscent of western music reality show film sets along with more local aesthetic preferences for brighter hues

42 Prior to de-centralization of the Tamil film music industry, Prasad Studio was one of the leading analog recording studios for mainstream Tamil film music production. Post-decentralization, the premises belong to The Prasad Academy, which provides training and diploma courses to aspiring filmmakers. The premises also serve as a filming set for Tamil films and television series. 255

of green, yellow, and red. The visual, much like the musical sonorities represent a prime example of the cultural hybridity and pluralism that is glocal.

The hosts of the show move center stage as they introduced each group and interacted with the judges. Towards the right corner of the stage, three judges sat on an elevated platform, towards the left, the live band was stationed. A studio audience comprising parents, friends and fellow performers sat on split levels surrounding the stage. As each group of the Mini Series was invited on stage, the team’s name flashed in dazzling lights across the set. Each team walked onto stage with their guest vocalist or instrumentalist who assisted in arranging and training them for the semi- final episode. As each group finished their performance, judges declared their verdict, studio audience members cheered on, and the show’s hosts ushered the performers off the stage. Between each team’s performances accompanying musicians did a sound check with the sound engineer, and the film crew reset their camera positions moving across filming cranes. In the meantime, the next team rushed forward to take their positions on stage; make-up artists retouched their faces, and the band did a quick warm up with the group.

During intermissions, I watched Vandana network and pose for selfies with singers and musicians for her Facebook profile. “Had a great time performing with Stephen and band,” read one of her posts. Her Facebook audience was quick to respond with “likes” and comments. Brinda, one of her friends enquired, “You taking part?” Vandana promptly responded “I trained a team am singing along” (Figure 6-5 left). Another Facebook post depicted Vandana posing with Pragathi, a former winner of the senior version of the show: “With pretty Pragathi @Airtel Super Singer 5 shoot.” Again, Vandana’s Facebook friends and fans responded with encouraging comments: “Semma [Awesome] u keep Rocking…” “I’m waiting to watch the performance…” (Figure 6-4. right).

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Figure 6-4. Vandana’s selfie with Airtel Super Singer’s keyboardist Stephen (left) and Pragathi, former winner of Airtel Super Singer Senior (right). Photo from Vandana’s Facebook page.

Providing snapshots of her day on the set, Vandana—who remains unknown in mainstream music circles, and who remains largely ignored by mainstream media–-was able to create awe and excitement among her

Facebook fans and followers who support her creative activities. Furthermore, by highlighting her roles as a vocal coach and guest performer on the show, and by posing with celebrities on the show, Vandana was able to restore a positive sense of self and elevate her status from a failed contestant to vocal coach.

April 12, 2016

Around 4:30 p.m. the hosts invite members of Lord Labakdas—Yazhini, Akilesh and Ajeedh—and Vandana to take their place on stage (Figure 6-5). The group performs a mash-up of two Tamil songs—"Sonapareeya” from Maryan (2013) and “Romeo attam pottal” from Mr. Romeo (1996). At the end of their performance, judges praise them for improving their performance from the previous week. Srinivas acknowledges, “Definitely this week it’s obvious that you’ve put in a lot more effort. You’ve put two

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songs together and arranged a nice medley.” Blaaze praises their effort, but criticized their excessive use of the kazoo, “if you use it once there is novelty, if you use it twice it’s alright, but if you use it again and again it becomes monotonous.” One of the key factors attributed to a successful performance on the show is the ability for contestants to take risks. Blaaze continued, “Nice that this week you took a risk, but I’d encourage you to take bigger risks.” Lord Labakdas received 46 points, insufficient to move them out of the final place. Although Vandana and the team anticipated the result, they are disappointed. After the judges declare their verdict, one of the hosts of the show turned to Vandana saying, “Who is this extra fitting?” “I’m Vandana,” Vandana responded. “Ok Vandana, tell us a little bit about yourself.” Now that the judges have announced their result, Vandana hesitates to promote herself as a vocal coach. She says: “I’m a singer and an independent artist. That’s it.”

Figure 6-5. Vandana’s Performance with Lord Labakdas. Screenshot from Vandana’s video footage to author.

Vandana no longer wanted to proudly proclaim before the judges that she was a vocal coach—perhaps a tactic to minimize her significance on the show now that Lord

Labakdas had lost. One of the major tasks in the cooling out process is to reconcile self- definitions with failure and available opportunities. Individuals frequently have

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opportunities to experience “a status which differs from the one he has lost or failed to gain but which provides at least a something or a somebody for him to become” 43

Vandana Accounts for her Unrealized Potential

When dealing with failure and rejection, contestants frequently draw on strategies to account for their unrealized potential. A year earlier, when Vandana failed to qualify for the senior televised auditions, she said, “I felt really bad when I got rejected. But, later on, I felt like this is nothing, this is just one platform to come out. There are a lot of…actually, thousands and thousands of platforms are there. You can project yourself with lot of things.”44 The various strategies she adopted to believe in her potential enabled her to forge ahead in her musical career. She began to explore multiple musical opportunities and roles as a live and studio cover artist. As as a freelance musician, she composed music for advertisements and Tamil soap operas and also started giving voice lessons. The experience and confidence Vandana gained from these myriad opportunities paved the way for a second chance to participate on Airtel

Super Singer.

As Season 5 came to an end, Vandana perceived the chance to feature on the junior version of Airtel Super Singer with Lord Labakdas as an opportunity to bring her wider visibility and reclaim her sense of self from failed contestant to vocal coach.

However, when confronted with failure with Lord Labakdas, rather than position herself as a vocal coach during the filming of the show, she chose to define her musical identity

43 Erving Goffman, “On Cooling the Mark Out,” 458.

44 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, February 17, 2017.

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as a singer and an independent artist.45 Later, in her conversations with me, she tried to convince me and herself that there was no demand for her unique vocal range and timbre in Tamil cinema. She asserted that Tamil film makers and audiences still preferred female voices with a higher tessitura and observed this preference as a requirement on the music reality show: “I’m an alto, so that is the reason I cannot attempt a lot of songs on the show. Tamil cinema has a lot of material for soprano because most of the women singers in Tamil [cinema] are soprano.” Furthermore,

Vandana emphasized that the show did not acknowledge creativity by way of improvisation; they demanded contestants reproduce a replica of the original song:

I definitely felt like I’m not a singing material because I feel like singers who sing in Super Singer are just expected to sing, they sing exactly, do the ditto of the song. They don’t have any sort of improvising talents. They don’t have anything from inside. They should sing exactly. And even if I’ve seen people improvising, I don’t feel it is good because they don’t have the talent. They are someone who simply repeat things.46

Vandana believed she was overqualified to participate on the show because of its lack of creative opportunities; she redirected her attention to focus on future possibilities: “I personally feel that I’m the material who can compose, so I’m not a film singer or a singer especially in reality shows. That I felt. That I found out. I personally felt that composing is my cup of tea.”47 Both times, Vandana chose to focus on her unrealized potential to move on from the results of the show. In doing so, she forged ahead to pursue her musical career and quest for stardom outside the film industry and the show. Furthermore, on many occasions, whenever a project or an opportunity did

45 Vandana used the term “independent” to refer to herself as a freelance musician, someone who is not part of the Tamil film industry.

46 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, February 17, 2017.

47 Ibid. 260

not materialize or prove successful, Vandana drew on such strategies of looking to future opportunities, which led her to explore multiple musical roles.

Conclusion

Despite the competitive environment and the slim chances of success on Airtel

Super Singer, Vandana auditioned, participated, and persevered because her chance to gain visibility on transnational media, however momentary, outweighed her anticipated experiences of failure and rejection. Through describing Vandana’s experience of failure on the show, and various affronts to her skill as a musician and her personality, this chapter demonstrates how she drew upon strategies and techniques to cope with rejection and bounce back. Vandana vented about the politics and partiality of judges, minimized her significance as a musician on the show by commenting on the skill of her fellow competitors and highlighted her own lack of her conformity to the stereotypical norms and voice categories favored in the film music industry. She focused on the possibility of future opportunities as she talked about how failure allowed her to find her true potential as a composer.

Talent combined with notions of Tamil cultural values of self-restraint, simplicity, and humility are lauded on Airtel Super Singer. Moreover, humility and self-restraint help contestants cope with their loss in the cooling out process. If Vandana failed to demonstrate these values in her performance and in her interaction with the judges and her fellow musicians, the experience of failure on the show and her re-assessment of her fellow participants taught her that talent alone does not suffice; successful candidates are talented and authenticate Tamil values of simplicity and humility. In the cooling out process, Vandana not only acknowledged the significance of these values,

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but she also learned to adopt them when she minimized her significance as a musician and acknowledged the skill of some of her fellow participants.

This chapter extends research on the cooling out process described by Goffman to the Tamilian cultural context. It also contributes to literature on conceptions of fame and celebrity that have moved beyond the realm of film stars into the world of ordinary people. Previous research on the construction of the star persona and conceptions of stardom in the Indian film music industry has drawn primarily on historical socio-political ideologies in conjunction with advancements in technology. This chapter, however, draws primarily on ethnographic participant-observation and interviews; it focused on

Vandana, an ordinary self-taught, middle class, female musician’s pursuit of fame and stardom. Her accounts and experiences reveal that through a winning combination of talent and highly-prized Tamil cultural values, social mobility, and success is possible for ordinary Tamil youth in Chennai. Successful contestants frequently represent these values of simplicity, humility, and self-restraint. Contestants who experience failure and also draw on these values cope better and make meaning of their failures during the cooling out process. Finally, this topic of cooling out and persevering can be extended to a range of different music-making settings and contexts other than reality television shows. Studies of individual accounts of failure and cooling out strategies are useful to understand how professional and amateur musicians experience failure and rejection to persevere despite setbacks in their everyday lives in order to realize their ambitions as creative artists.

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CHAPTER 7 LIVE STREAMING: A FEMALE SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIAN ATTAINS STARDOM THROUGH SELF-FASHIONING

One morning, in late January, almost a week after my first face-to-face encounter with Vandana at her studio, she called to inform that her friend had introduced her to “a cool, new online gig.” My fieldnotes from that day reveal how I stumbled upon a new, yet short-lived pathway into cover culture—#fame, an online live-streaming application.

Just as playback technology had opened a space for ordinary middle-class women to fashon their voices for public careers in Indian cinema during the 1940s in Indian film music production, contemporary mobile phone technology presents ordinary, middle- class women opportunities to fashion their vocies and images to attain stardom within cover culture.

January 25, 2016

10:30 a.m. “Nina,” Vandana’s voice resounds with excitement over the phone “Listen, I called to tell you, I have a cool, new online gig. It’s going to be the next big thing in entertainment! One of my friends suggested my name, he’s a very, very nice guy. Always very supportive. I don’t know how it’s going to be. It seems we will have to be on trial and training for a week. They will see if my work is good. If I am doing everything properly and all. Only they will they make me permenant. Let’s see how it goes. I pray to God that it will work out. It will be a regular monthly income. So, I want to try it out. Let’s see.”

11:30 a.m. I logged into my computer. Five minutes later, I am finally connected to the Internet and I am on the #fame website, which claims to be India’s leading live-streaming web application network. I download the app and sign-up for a free #fame account.

5:30 p.m. I logged into #fametamil and observe ordinary middle-class Tamil female youth in Chennai live-stream cover versions of popular Tamil film songs from their mobile phones within the privacy of their bedrooms (Figure 7-1).

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Figure 7-1. Female #fametamil performers Vagu (left), Prashanti (center), and Rizfa (right) live-streaming from their mobile phones within the confines of their bedroom. Screenshot from live stream.

9:40 p.m. Vandana logs into her #fametamil account. Unlike her fellow female #fametamil performers, who sang only Tamil film songs, Vandana sings a Hindi film hit song “Jiya Chale” from Dil Se (1998). Considering her audience is predominantly North Indian, Vandana’s choice of repertoire has instant appeal. She mesmerizes them with her performance. Moreover, unlike her fellow #fame performers who sang a capella into their mobile phone mouthpiece, Vandana capitalizes on her family-owned recording studio to project a professional image of herself. Seated at her workstation in the studio, she sings into the talkback mic and accompanies herself on the keyboard. Along with the professional ambience, her talent, and affable personality, set Vandana apart from her peers. She is well on her way to becoming a #fametamil star (Figure 7-2).

Figure 7-2. Vandana in the recording studio. Screenshot from live stream.

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In January 2016, #fametamil, a regional language digital live-streaming network, transformed the ways in which youth in Chennai engaged with popular Tamil film songs.

#fametamil offered twenty-five middle-class, Tamil-speaking youth between the ages of

18 and 30 opportunities to earn a part-time income, explore their musical identities, and engage with wider audiences via mobile live-streaming technology. #fametamil fostered an online participatory Tamil film song cover culture. In doing so, #fametamil created an alternate, yet complementary space for belonging to mainstream production, enabling amateur and self-taught musicians to engage in self-fashioning strategies, interact with live audiences, and transform themselves into “#famestars.”

From January to August 2016, I conducted virtual and face-to-face ethnography with #famestars. Female #famestars, in their quest to gain recognition, conspicuously capitalized on self-presentational strategies. However, only a handful gained exceptional online star status. In pursuit of online stardom, Vandana’s creativity and outgoing personality helped her outshine the handful of female #fame stars who projected a professional image and focused on establishing a connection with online audiences. In an age of convergent media, attaining online popularity or star status for ordinary individuals like Vandana is a collaborative game, one that involves a combination of learned image creation and maintenance strategies, along with a set of performed negotiable rituals between online performer and audience. Viewed through the lens of star scholarship, as well as Goffman’s theories on self-presentation, encounters, and interactions, Vandana’s collaborative game on #fametamil offers an instructive case study on how a middle-class, self-taught, female musician pursued online stardom.

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Erving Goffman’s Presentation of Self in Digiital and Social Media Life

Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical metaphor considers social life a stage on which individuals interact with each other in the performance of their daily lives. By carefully selecting and altering behavior in their encounters and interactions, people strive to present “idealized” rather than authentic versions of themselves—a process Goffman calls the process of “impression management.”1 Digital and social media scholars frequently draw on Goffman’s framework to examine online users’ presentation of self and their social interactions; scholars typically examine sites like Facebook and

Instagram, wherein self-presentation involves a series of images that form an exhibition or curation of the self and elicits interactions by way of “replies,” “likes,” and “shares.”2

However, online live-streaming environments, much like live settings, enable socially constructed performances in real time. Goffman suggests that to put on a successful show, performers put in as much work offstage as on. The following sections draw on

Goffman’s framework to illustrate some self-presentational strategies Vandana adopted within and outside her live-stream to create and maintain her online #famestar status.

It is essential to point out that while Vandana engaged in individual self- fashioning and self-promotional strategies, #fametamil required their performers to follow a set of collective image creation and maintenance practices. Talent manager,

Dipthi, requested #fame stars to send in twenty high-resolution photographs and five videos to promote performers on a regular basis (Figure 7-3).

1 Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. (New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1959).

2 Marwick and boyd, “To See and Be Seen,” 139-158.

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Figure 7-3. Talent Manager Dipthi’s message requesting #famestars to send in photos and videos to promote talent. Screenshot of WhatsApp communication to author.

Only #fame perfromers who could afford professional videos and photographs were officially promoted by #fametamil’s. Vandana was fortunate to have Prabhu, her photographer and videographer friend who helped occasionally. When #fametamil made a short-notice request for a cover song, Vandana asked me to film the video on my Zoom camera.

At the #fametamil orientation I attended, talent manager, Dipthi, emphasized the importance of presenting a professional image. Moreover, Dipthi also sent out regular reminders on the WhatsApp group: “Plz take ur beam seriously…at the same time enjoy it…be presentable…Talk in Tamil…make sure ur background is gud…n be energetic when u go live” (Figure 7-4).

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Figure 7-4. #fame talent manager Dipthi’ announcement concerning self-presentation strategies and Vandana’s response. Screenshot of WhatsApp communication to author.

Hours before their performances, #famestars were required to log into #fame’s website and notify fans and followers of their daily live-stream or “beam” schedule. The snapshot below depicts Vandana’s profile along with a log of her daily beam schedule on #fame’s website (Figure 7-5).

Figure 7-5. Daily schedules of Vandana’s beams on #fametamil. Photo screenshot of Vandana’s #fame profile.

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#fame’s website’s integration with social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and

Instagram encouraged performers to repost or “share” their performance schedule, thus enabling #famestars to attract a wider audience. On January 25, Vandana’s first live- stream performance, she notified her Facebook friends and followers: “Guys….Am live on fames app everyday 9:30pm….” (Figure 7-6. left). She also used Facebook to promote special performances on occasions like Valentine’s Day or International Dance

Day (Figure 7-6. center and right)

Figure 7-6. Vandana’s Facebook promotions of her first beam 1.25.16 (left), Valentine’s Day special on 2.14.16 (center) and #famedancemob event for International Dance Day 4.28.16 (right). Screenshot from Vandana’s Facebook page.

Self-promotional posts allowed #famestars to brand themselves as artists and gain greater social capital. Posts and re-posts also ensured a consistent flow of audience to the site. While fierce self-promotion led several amateur artists to be competitive, at the orientation I attended with Vandana, talent managers reminded artists to “like,” “share,” and “re-tweet” their peers’ posts on social media to build camaraderie. Performers were selective with endorsing their peer’s Facebook posts; Vandana’s “likes” and “shares” seldom promoted female singers who were who were her direct competition. However,

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she went out of her way to support a male keyboardist, Anoop Nair (Figure 7-6 left), and her “vayaadi”3 friend, Rizfa who performed under a different category titled “#Comedy and Entertainment” (Figure 7-7 right).

Figure 7-7. Vandana “liked” and “shared” of Anoop Nair’s schedule (left) and Rizfa’s schedule, encouraging audiences to watch her “vayaadi friend.” Screenshot from Vandana’s Facebook page.

Talent managers also recommended #fame musicians collaborate with each other to build their networks and add novelty to their performance. However, for

Vandana, it was more important to preserve the professional image she so carefully constructed for herself. Rather than participate with female #famestars she deemed

“amateur” musicians, she chose to perform with #famestar, Anoop, a male, self-taught, professional keyboardist (Figure 7-8. left), another female #famestar, Prashanthi, and

3 In colloquial Tamil, “vayaadi” refers to a chatty, garrulous person.

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even invited Achu, her drummer musician friend with whom she collaborated with in live and studio performance spaces (Figure 7-8. right).

Figure 7-8. Vandana’s #fame self-promotion post for collaborating with Anoop and her live-stream with drummer friend Achu. (right). Screenshot from Vandana’s Facebook page (left) and from live-stream by author. (right).

Regarding the two collaborative experiences with #famestars, Vandana commented, “It was good!” I could meet them [fellow #famestars]. Try to be friends, but no one was really friendly. In fact, other ladies was lil jealous of me That I play and sing. Ladies are not good,” she further justified her selection of collaborators.4

Female #famestars relied on “selfies,” a contemporary online photography genre, wherein selfie takers pose in flattering angles and purse their mouths to form the

“duckface” to appear thinner. Media scholars argue that while selfies have the power to create narcissists, on the one hand, they also provide empowerment to those who lack confidence.5 To a dusky south Indian woman like Vandana, a “fair complexion”

4 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, August 17, 2016.

5 Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, The Narcissim Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement, (New York: Atria Paperback, 2009)

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represented the epitome of beauty and a glamorous personality. To Vandana, being fair was a prerequisite for attaining stardom. Like many dark-skinned Indian women,

Vandana had previously sought out skin lightening treatments to transform herself into a

“fair girl.” Each day, as Vandana prepared to schedule her beam, I witnessed her spend hours manipulating her image with apps to create glamorous promotional photos for

#fametamil. As she tweaked her image, she half-jokingly exclaimed, “Nina, see, now I look like a fair, glamorous girl!” (Figure 7-9).

Figure 7-9. Vandana’s airbrushed profile picture taken with her mobile phone camera app. Photo from Vandana selfie collection shared with author.

Vandana needed to reproduce these idealized impressions of herself on her live- stream. From January to April, when her family-owned studio provided a professional ambience, Vandana experimented with a DIY portable photography studio light umbrella that she created with a rain umbrella, a mic stand, and a light bulb to brighten the dark studio room and her complexion (Figure 7-10).

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Figure 7-10. Vandana in the ill-lit studio (left) experiments with her DIY portable photography studio light umbrella to make her look glamorous on her #fametamil live-stream (right). Photos from Vandana selfie collection shared with author.

In April, when Vandana left home and moved into the women’s hostel, just like her fellow #famestars, she was forced to live-stream from her bedroom using her mobile phone mouthpiece. In the days that followed, one audience member accustomed to her professional set-up enquired, “What happened? Why no studio today?”6 Vandana realized the importance of maintaining the image and setting she had so carefully constructed for herself; it was one of the features that set herself apart from her fellow female #famestars. The next afternoon, as we rode through the streets of her vicinity on our way back from one of her voice student’s lessons, Vandana abruptly halted her scooter by a small hardware store. “One second Nina, I want to buy a bulb, wires, and a lamp shade,” she said. A few days earlier, Vandana sent me pictures of her room; it was bright and airy (Figure 7-11).

6 Author’s #fametamil footage, April 6, 2016.

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Figure 7-11. Vandana’s WhatsApp pics of her hostel room sent to author April 2, 2017. Photos by Vandana shared with author.

“Why do you need more light in your room?” I enquired. “You’ll see,” she responded nonchalantly. After Vandana made her purchase at the local hardware store, we rode back to her hostel room. She began assembling the fixtures. The day before she scoured the internet and printed out posters and pictures of Michael Jackson, popular film music directors, Illaairaja and A.R. Rahman, and the #fame logo. Taping the images together she transformed the pale cream painted wall into a colorful background.

Furthermore, until she could save up to buy her own studio gear, Vandana had also borrowed a mic and keyboard from her sound producer friend, Alex (Figure 7-12).

Figure 7-12. Vandana’s #fame set-up in her hostel room. Photos from Vandana to author.

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While she made these aesthetic adjustments to her bedroom, Vandana explained,

“Nina, you see, I have to do something different from everyone. Only then can I attract more fans and followers to my beam.” Vandana’s efforts were not in vain. Later that night, one of her regular viewers, Bada$$MeeIDevil remarked: “U r looking like sun rising today lol” (Figure 7-13). Another audience member compared her to a local film actress: “You look like Navya Nair, today.” Vandana accepted the comments gracefully saying, “Navya Nair is so beautiful, thank you!”7

Figure 7-13. Bada$$MeeIDevil, Vandana’s regular followers commented on the adjustments she made to her appearance and live-stream setting. Screenshot from live stream.

In the months that followed, Vandana’s musical and social life frequently demanded she adopt different locations for her live-streaming performances: When on tour with bands, she live-streamed from the green room (Figure 7-14 right), after attending a popular playback singer’s performance at one of Chennai’s leading malls, she performed from the food court (Figure 7-14 center), and on her way back from a

7 Transcript from author’s footage of #fametamil beam April 7, 2016.

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religious pilgrimage she made with a friends to Pune, Vandana live streamed at the airport (Figure 7-14 right).

Figure 7-14. Vandana live-streaming from the green room (left), streets of Chennai (centre), Pune airport (right). Screenshot from live stream.

In this manner, mobile live-streaming facilitated this personal citizen journalism style of performance, allowing Vandana to add novelty and originality to her live- streams. Moreover, sharing a slice of her life as a freelance musician with online fans and followers enabled her to boost her online star status. So eclectic and creative were her choice of locations and performances compared to other female #famestar’s predictable live-streams that her audience member, PrashanthCru11, marveled, “Wow!

Everyday a new place!” and VijayaPriya envied: “Such a creative profession. I want to leave my corporate job and be like you.”8 Vandana has succeeded in garnering a similar level of star status and admiration from her audience that only professional playback singers in the Tamil film music industry command from their fans and followers.

8 Transcript from author’s footage of #fametamil beam July 27, 2016.

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Playing the #fame Game

In pursuit of online stardom, Vandana not only successfully fashioned her online image, but also embraced the role of the “ideal” #famestar. This is to say, in Goffmanian terms, “to embrace a role is to disappear completely into the virtual self-available in the situation, to be fully seen in terms of the image and to confirm expressively one’s acceptance of it. To embrace a role is to be embraced by it.”9 Roles may not only be played, but also played at. In roleplaying, participants experience a realm of meanings as real. The performers:

mimic a role for the avowed purpose of make-believe…performers are caught exactly between illusion and reality, and must lead one audience to accept the role portrait as real, even while assuring another audience that the actor in no way is convincing himself10

Vandana’s soulful performances combined with the glamorous snapshots of her life as a freelance musician led many in her audience to believe she was a successful popular musician; newcomers frequently enquired if she was a professional playback singer.

When confronted by these precarious distinctions between her fantasy role of star, her evolving musical persona, and the person she is in everyday life, Vandana found herself located within the margins of “playing” and “playing at,” a distinction, which frequently reminded her that “doing is not being.” 11

However, the performed or enacted self “does not derive from its possessor, but from the whole scene of his action, being generated by that attribute of local events

9 Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 106.

10 Ibid., 99.

11 Ibid.

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which renders them interpretable by witnesses.”12 Role-playing or “world building activities”13 create a realm of meanings experienced as real by all participants involved.

Just as Vandana played the role of the star performer and held her audience entranced, her audience played their part to interact in a way that continued to boost her star status as they would with a real celebrity. In this manner, both Vandana and her audience were able to reproduce the star-audience dynamic prevalent in mainstream popular

Tamil film culture. Drawing on Vandana’s socio-musical encounters and interactions with real time audiences, the following section argues that Vandana’s star status emerged not merely from her performative skills and her ability to command star status, but through a ‘working consensus,’14 a set of shared meanings, ongoing adjustments in perception and interactions between Vandana, the performer, and her audience.

Welcoming and Creating a Connection with Audience

Live performance is an act of communication and performers resort to a variety of strategies to create a connection with their audience. Stage performers who make their way on stage are typically greeted with vocal shouts, yelps, and whistles from their audience. Live stage performers in Chennai, emulate global stage conventions; as they make their entrance on stage, they acknowledge their audience with a “Hello, Chennai!

Are you having a good time?” Similar performer-audience acknowledgments were evident on #fametamil. Every evening when Vandana logged in to her live stream, or

“beam,” her followers received a notification on their mobile phones informing them she

12 Erving Goffman The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 252.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid., 9-10.

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was online. When each audience member logged in to her beam each audience members’ screen name appeared in the chat screen announcing their arrival. At the beginning of a live-stream, Vandana created an instant connection with her audience by welcoming them individually:

Vandana: Hi Ashraaf Welcome to my beam. Hi Rishon, welcome,

welcome. Nalla kekuda? (is my voice audible?).

Rishon (types within the chat screen): Volume is gud.

Vandana: Ok I’ll sing ‘Vennilave’ now…

[She sings ‘Vennilave, Vennilave’ from Minsaara Kanavu (1997).

After the last chorus, Vandana scrolls through her mobile phone to view and acknowledge comments, acknowledge audience members who joined the beam during her performance]

Vandana: “Hi GokulRanger! Are you a biker? Hi Dhoni Reddy. Welcome!

Ashraf, thank you for the stickers. So much love. People are very

encouraging15

The transcript from one of Vandana’s earlier live streams is an example of how she and her peers structured the beginning of each live stream every day. After #fame stars welcomed their audience, introduced and then performed a song, at the end of the performance they scrolled through comments in the chat screen, graciously acknowledged compliments, welcomed viewers who joined the stream during the performance, and occasionally engaged in longer conversations before introducing and performing the next cover. This pattern was repeated until the end of the beam; performers then thanked their audience for their attention, reminded them to click the

15 Transcript from author’s footage of Vandana’s #fametamil beam, January 25, 2016.

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follow button to become a fan and get notifications, and invited their audience to join them at the same time the next day. Such scripted pieces of text served as rituals to structure the performance.16 As Vandana became more familiar with the live streaming platform and her fans, unlike other #fame stars who replicated their austere performances day after day, Vandana capitalized on her convivial personality to make these interactions with her audience less scripted.17 Audiences were always eager to interact and have their presence, and their comments acknowledged by Vandana. In turn, the individual attention she bestowed on them, helped build rapport and create a regular fan following.

Song Expectations and Requests

Along with their greetings, fans and followers frequently made song requests.

Vandana’s repertoire on #fametamil, therefore, was not entirely representative of her preference; it was largely shaped by audiences’ expectations and requests. Unlike, her fellow female #fames stars who only sang Tamil film songs, Vandana considered the demographic of her audience; on occasions when there were north Indians on the live stream she performed Hindi songs, thus appealing to a wider viewership. It was essential for her to be perceptive and satisfy her audience, for the choice of repertoire strongly impacted the overall mood and the nature of interactions on her live stream.

For instance, if Vandana’s audience were not satisfied with her performance or the content she chose they provided immediate feedback or left to join another #famestar’s

16 In Goffmanian terms in his paper “The lecture” published in Forms of Talk (1981:162-196), “text- brackets” the formal introductions and closings.

17 Within the context of the lecture, Goffman refers to such unscripted pieces of talk to engage the audience on a deeper level as “fresh talk.”

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live stream. One audience member, Adengappa, dissatisfied with Vandana’s selection complained, “romba (very) old… podhum (enough) stop change the song ji…” He went on to request a cross-gender version of a popular hit “Thalipongathaee” (Figure 7-15).

Figure 7-15. Adengappa requests Vadnana to sing a more contemporayr song. Screenshot from live stream.

In this manner, the adaptive feedback loop encouraged a collaborative, participatory performance environment and strengthened the performer-audience bond. Frequently, the energy of the experience united participants with similar taste in music; this collaborative nature of performance with its emphasis on social cohesiveness is evocative of Turino’s “participatory performance” model wherein performer-audience interactions are free-flowing and “not scripted in advance.”18 The role of audiences’

18 Thomas Turino, Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation. (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2008), 43.

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song requests was crucial not only to create content, but also the entire event. The audience’s role in co-creating the event was therefore crucial to creating and maintaining the right ambience.

(Un)divided Attention

Although #fame’s audio-visual design privileged the performer, it was impossible for Vandana to constantly be center stage. Disembodied audiences who interacted with

Vandana, drew on various strategies that “maximized each participant’s opportunity to perceive the other participant’s monitoring of him”19 or her. While Vandana performed, they interacted with fellow audience members within the text-emoticon-chat channel during the performance. Some drew attention to themselves by choosing absurd screen names such as BAda$$MeeIDevil, MadNatz, and KewlBoySuresh. On July 13, no sooner had FharukShaikm joined the live-stream than he announced it was his birthday.

Vandana sang “Happy birthday” to him and the audience proceeded to flood the chat screen with birthday greetings. FharukShaikm was ecstatic. In other instances, fans and followers vied for attention by referring to their fan status: On one occasion three fans started argued that they were “Vandana’s biggest fan.” In this way, fans and followers drew attention to themselves and momentarily overturned the performer-audience power dynamics (un)consciously.

19 Erving Goffman The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 17-18. In face-to-face encounters people constantly monitor their perception of themselves. Goffman argues that this is not the case in videoconferencing because of the limited resolution of facial expression. However, I would argue that #fame’s disembodied audiences found ways to fashion their images and draw attention to themselves.

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Divided attention among the audience frequently manifested itself when individuals engaged in their own conversations on a focused topic or as they flitted across multiple conversations that had little to do with the performance:

…audiences become involved…they skip along, dipping in and out … waiting for…special effects which actually capture them, and topple them mentarily into what is being said.20

Such interactions within the live-stream are reminiscent of how live performance and conversations take place synchronously within locations like pubs and bars, where the music tends to recede into the background. Such participatory modes of audience interaction, particularly cross talk and banter, occasionally revealed tensions or power dynamics between individuals typically absent in other live-presentation modes of performance. Interactions frequently move between focused and divided attention.

While the focus on Vandana helped boost her performance and star status on

#fametamil, divided attention helped foster an online community for Tamil film music cover culture and provided a sense of belonging for cover artists and their fans.

Humor

Musicians frequently employ humor as a strategy to connect with their audiences and provide entertainment. Vandana frequently regaled her audience with anecdotes and jokes, which created a relaxed, light-hearted ambience. While Vandana used humor to connect with her audience, her fans and followers incorporated humor as a strategy to foster a shared communal experience or draw attention to themselves. A

20 Erving Goffman, “The Lecture.” In Forms of Talk. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 172. Within the context of the lecture, which Goffman views as a social situation, audiences become involved in spite of the text, not because of it. They dip in and out of the lecture’s argument and wait for something engaging to stir them. Similarly, Vandana’s audience dipped in and out of the performance; they add their own conversations and interacted with her performance.

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handful of fans who identified as “rowdies” good-humoredly joked at Vandana’s expense. One of her biggest fans, Mad_Natz, interpreted such banter as a form of ridicule: “For some, Vandana ka21 time for some is mimicry and comedy!” 22 he remarked disapprovingly within the chat screen. Unlike other female #famestars, who took offence to teasing, Vandana sportingly played along to “save face” in awkward or embarrassing situations.23 She confessed:

Some of the #famestars get angry and lose their temper; I want to keep my audience happy. If I get angry then the audience will get upset. I am not a just a performer. I am an entertainer. I have to show I can handle these types of situations. I have to show I am different.”24

By joining in the fun, Vandana kept her audience entertained without creating tension.

Intimacy

One of the ways Vandana created intimacy with her audience was by describing her unique experiences. After singing her rendition of Tamil film composer Ilaiyaraaja’s

“Kodai Kala Katre,” Vandana explained, “Ilaiyaraaja oodu paatu (Ilaiyaraaja’s songs) will take me inside, other songs I will have to go inside. This is my humble inner feeling. So, in other songs, I will have to involve myself, but Ilaiyaraaja’s songs will pull me inside.”25

Such moments of revelation or “keyings,” that which “could not be delivered” within the actual performance,26 the emotional connection or sense of interiority Vandana

21 Ka in colloquial Tamil is diminutive for “akka” or elder sister, not necessarily related.

22 Transcript from author’s footage of #fametamil beam, July 21, 2016.

23 Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 17.

24 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, April 31, 2016.

25 Transcript from author’s footage of #fametamil beam, July 12, 2016.

26 Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 46.

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describes after the performance is intended to provide access to her mind and performance experience. In doing so, she also created a more intimate connection with her audience.

On another occasion, TigerRonny asked her: “How can you manage the on- stage pressure?” Vandana responded:

I’m a performer. I’m meant to perform in front of people. You can’t say that I’m scared of the crowd…That and all you can’t say. I was discussing with a researcher recently. Magical flow…is the happening thing in that moment…When I sing for 10 times it will not happen. Sometimes four times it will be a magical flow. Through my latest on-stage performances, I analyzed about myself and my performance…So the result is, when I sing it for myself. When I sing it for my soul the magical flow happens. When I bother about the people around me the magical flow goes. So, from the last few performances I decided to sing for myself.27

The discussion with the researcher Vandana referred to was, the conversation she had with me a few days earlier. I had explained to her Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow psychology. For the next few days, Vandana repeated this anecdote of experiencing flow, being in the zone, or what she liked to call “magical flow;” such anecdotes, repeated as “fresh talk,” or unscripted talk gave the semblance of “liveness.”

These “extemporaneous, ongoing formulations” as “immediate responses” are

“something of an illusion of itself, never being as fresh as it seems.”28 Vandana recycled this, and many such instances of “fresh talk” night after night. New comers listened, captivated by the illusion, while her regular fans and followers were always in awe at the privileged access these moments presented to them.

27 Transcript from author’s footage of #fametamil beam June 25, 2016

28 Erving Goffman, “The Lecture.” In Forms of Talk. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 172.

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The audience also enacted intimacy in various other ways: AlexSamuel, one of

Vandana’s closest friends, extended his familiarity from the real world to his online interactions with her; he teased her, spoke to her in colloquial Tamil, dropping honorifics, a form of Tamil spoken only among close friends. Acquainted with her quirky ability to create funky chord progressions when he made a song request for “Thoda thoda,” he teased, “With the proper chord progression: P … vassi de pattu (come on, sing the song girl) .”29 Such rare, but authentic interactions, revealed much about

Vandana and her relationships with her close friends. Acknowledging her friends and sharing intimate moments became crucial to Vandana’s public image. On another occasion, Vandana dedicated a song to her friend Bala and his fiancé who had recently become engaged.

When online fans and followers had access to such familiarity, Vandana seemed even more approachable and accessible. Two of Vandana’s ardent fans, Santhosh Ram and Girish Krishnan, were rewarded with a lunch appointment for their loyalty. Santosh later posted a selfie on Facebook with the caption, “A long due to meet wid bro :D and lunch with one of the coolest musicians I have met in recent times :D wowww <3 <3 whatta dayy :D” (Figure 7-16).

29 Transcript from author’s footage of #fametamil beam July 19, 2016.

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Figure 7-16. Santosh’s Facebook Selfie with #famestar Vandana in the real world. Screenshot from Vandana’s Facebook page.

This sense of intimacy and affiliation Vandana experienced with her fans within live- stream, then in the real world, and back again within social media, may be viewed as part of a larger transmedia project to boost her star status. It also exemplifies how

Vandana and her fans replicated mainstream, contemporary, Tamil film star-fan dynamics within a social media environment to create a sense of affiliation and intimacy.30

Immediacy

In an age of instant social media “likes,” “sharing,” “tweets” and “re-tweets,” the intention to communicate on #fametamil was driven by the same sense of immediacy.

Since the flow of communication occurred in real time, Vandana’s failure to acknowledge a fan’s greeting or comment was occasionally met with annoyance. A lack

30 Alice Marwick, A., & boyd, danah.”To See and Be Seen,” 139-158.

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of a response or acknowledgement from Vandana resulted in one audience member repeating his question or song request. On one occasion a viewer did not fail to address his disappointment that Vandana had ignored him thrice. To draw a similar parallel,

Osborne, in the context of “Beatlemania,” addresses these forms of fan behavior as

“hysteria” or “mania.”31 Just as fans contend to have their voices heard within the clamor of voices in a live performance setting, there was a competitive interactional desire for

#fametamil audiences to be visible within the chat screen to attract Vandana’s attention.

Boosting Star Status via Chat, ‘Likes,’ and Emoticons

While audience members like Satishk0728 unabashedly proclaimed thing like:

‘Vandana is my favourite girl in my Fame,’32 ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ buttons allowed audience to provide instant, interactive feedback on her performance. Fans not only awarded her with “likes,” but also monitored the visible metrics of her performance.

BAda$$MeeIDevil threatened audiences, “Whoever is on beam and not liking, I’ll hit u all with my car so start liking.”33 Smartguysathish urged: “Regular viewers click likes.

Newcomers click the like buttons and also follow button.”34 Mad_Natz, Vandana’s ardent fan, meticulously worked out the time it took to award a “like” on #fametamil’s live stream; he demanded that all viewers: “like her performance every 40 seconds.”

31 Osborne in Ioannis Tsioulakis and Elina Hytönen-Ng, Musicians and their Audiences: Performance, Speech and Mediation (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2016).

32 Transcript from author’s footage of #fametamil beam, June 2, 2016.

33 Ibid.

34 Transcript from author’s footage of #fametamil beam, May 3, 2016.

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Figure 7-17. Mad_Natz’s rants on viewer’s “dislikes.” Screenshot from live stream.

During one of her #fametamil performances, Vandana had 88 “likes” and 3

“dislikes.” Mat_Natz did not fail to rant about his disappointment: “guys if you like her performance or not, give her likes… just think what effort she puts to sing a song. U ppl are simply giving dislike…Instead give her suggestions to improve…don’t discourage ppl guys…! I dunno what else to say more than this. Poonga da...! yennaiyum serious ah pesa vechanitenga (This is crazy, you guys have made me of all people give you a serious lecture!)” 35 (Figure 7-17).

An important part of face-to-face encounters and interactions is assessing feelings and emotional reactions. In the absence of such face-to-face communication on

#fametamil’s live stream, emoticons provided the visual dimension to communicate, enhance, and regulate socioemotional interactions. Some #fame emoticons were similar to “response cries,” “out louds;” or non-conversational gestures of self-expressions such

35 Transcript from author’s footage of #fametamil beam June 23, 2016.

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“Oops” or “Ouch!;” these were intended for interaction, to be overheard by Vananda and other audience memebers.

Occasionally, audience members provided negative feedback on Vandana’s performance by spitting, dismissing her efforts as useless, or with a “ROFTL” (Rolling

On The Floor Laughing) emoticon. To a large extent, however, they engaged in very concrete ways to express their enthusiasm, admiration, and support. As a marker of a successful performance, #fame emoticons of whistles, applause, hi-fives, and thumbs- up recreated live concert fan’s enthusiastic vocal “yelps,” “yeahs,” “whoops,” and

“whistles.” #fametamil’s local emoticons signifiying admiration and encouragement included: Dil chatha hai (in Hindi, meaning You’re my heart’s desire) and Chak De

Phatte (in Punjabi, meaning Bring the house down). These specific North Indian cultural expressions and body language and visual gestures enabled Tamil youth to emote and capture the collective imaginary of popular Indian film music fan culture (Figure 7-18).

Emoticons provided Vandana with an instant feedback loop; they enabled her to access her audience’s emotional investment during her performance and spontaneously choose her repertoire. Furthermore, Vandana encouraged her audience to cheer for her: “Please send stickers and click likes. The likes are like my boost. When I see the likes and emotions I'll be happily singing. Really, encouragement is more important for an artist.”36 As Vandana moved her audience by driving the groove, her audience reciprocated more enthusiastically with a stream of encouraging emoticons. The spontaneous, intense flow of emotions within the chat screen, was a marker of a successful performance and it also helped boost Vandana’s #famestar status.

36 Transcript from author’s footage of #fametamil beam, July 15, 2016

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High visible metrics such as number of followers, viewers, and “likes” attached to a performance were intended to translate into “FTL” (Fame Talent League) points.

#famestars with the highest FTL scores had a chance to win prize money of up to $

150,500 USD on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.37 Vandana frequently chose to perform for longer or multiple time slots on a day to gain more viewers and followers and a higher FTL scores. Role-playing the star on #fametamil functioned on this gamification model, but no #fametamil stars received financial rewards.

Figure 7-18. List of Negative, Positive, and Local Emoticons curated by author from #fame. Photos of emoticons from #fame app.

37 “Fame starts regional language beams” [January 15, 2016] online [accessed February 20, 2016.] .

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Thanks

The ubiquitous thanks given by musicians to their audience can be understood in a number of ways: thanking the audience for their applause, for being attentive during the performance, and for taking time from their day to support the artist. Audience’s acoustic applause and appreciation within live settings was replaced by “likes” and emoticons within the chat screen. In addition to Vandana’s acts of verbal gratitude, she also composed a small ‘thank you’ jingle she sang at the end of every live-stream:

“Thank you so much for watching me live. It’s time to say goodbye... It’s time to say goodbye. Sweet goodbye… Sweet goodbye… Sweet goodbye…” (Example 7.1)

Example 7.1 Transcription of Vandana’s jingle from #fametamil live stream footage. Author’s transcription.

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Singing her composition at the end of each live-stream allowed Vandana to express gratitude and it also relieved her from the awkwardness of ending the live-stream performances abruptly. Fans and followers frequently begged for more songs and she did not want to leave them feeling disappointed. When Vandana sang the jingle every night, it conveyed to her audience she was ending her performance. The jingle reinforced a sense of structure or sequential organization that Vandana incorporated into her performance. More importantly, it allowed her to take control and bring a sense of finality to her online live-stream performance.

Conclusion

Between January and August 2016, #fametamil served as an alternate, yet complementary socio-musical space for the production and dissemination of popular

Tamil film music culture. This chapter illustrates how an ordinary, self-taught, female musician like Vandana seized opportunities to engage with online audiences and self- presentation strategies in her quest to attain stardom. Unlike the parasocial nature or traditional stardom frequently controlled and managed by an institutional model involving media and personal managers—digital and social media formats encourage user-generated content, which have dramatically altered the production and practices of contemporary stardom. Media scholars observe, “we see the process of celebrification trickling down to blog writers, social network site participants, YouTube stars, and other social media users.”38 Self-presentation and image-maintenance practices are equally accessible to popular icons and ordinary individuals.

38 Theresa Senft, “Microcelebrity and the Branded Self,” 2013; and Marwick and boyd, “To See and Be Seen,” 139-158.

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Female #famestar Vandana and her online fans encountered new practices of attendance and engagement. In an age of convergent media, I argue that attaining online star status for ordinary individuals like Vandana involves a combination of learned image creation and maintenance strategies, along with a set of performed negotiable rituals between online performer and audience. #fametamil’s online dynamic, decentralized, digital space for Tamil film song cover culture, however, was a short-lived phenomenon. By July 2016, #fame’s live-stream technology was rendered inadequate to support its growing online viewership; #famestars and their audiences frequently experienced interruptions and network errors which hampered communication and performance.

Figure 7-19. #Fame shuts down in August 2016. Screenshot from #fame’s website.

By August, the site shut down with a sign, “under maintenance” (Figure 7-19) which eventually led to the demise of #fame, ending possibilities for Vandana and her fellow

#famestars to pursue a career in live streaming Tamil film cover song performance to audiences in Chennai and beyond.

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CHAPTER 8 REFLECTING ON MULTIPLE PATHWAYS LEADING TO CHENNAI’S SPACES AND BEYOND

It is almost two years since I have been back to Chennai. Much has changed, and yet some things remain the same for Vandana and her fellow cover performers. In this concluding chapter, I employ the trope of “pathways”1 because it fittingly captures the journeys—Vandana’s and mine—across multiple spaces for Tamil film song cover recordings and performances. As I reflect on these pathways, I chronicle some of the ongoing successes and struggles Vandana experienced over the last two years, as well as her plans for future possibilities within and beyond the cover scene.

Navigating Multiple Cover Spaces

For six months, from January to June 2016, in her quest to gain wider visibility,

Vandana’s pathways led me through five spaces for Tamil film song cover performance: small-scale recording studios, live stage shows, her mobile voice studio, a music reality television show, and an online live streaming site. Collectively, I refer to each of these music-sites as a “cover scene” for Tamil film song. Cover spaces provided Vandana with opportunities to explore her creativity, acquire musical and technological skill, gain professional mobility, fashion her musical identity, and experience tensions, rejection, and stardom.

For Vandana, moving from one musical space to another—one musical role to another—meant acquiring new socio-musical skills for being in the world of cover

1 Ruth Finnegan, The Hidden Musicians: Music Making in an English Town. (Middleton: Wesleyan University Press, 2007), 325. Finnegan’s metaphor of “pathways” provides an apt lens to understand how a liminal figure like Vandana not only explored multiple spaces and roles for cover performance, but also how she negotiated a range of cover activities and commitments, finding stronger affiliations with some, rejecting others, and then moving on to explore new opportunities.

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culture. Vandana is creative and curious by nature, always open to new possibilities.

She sees every chance to perform as an opportunity to widen her network, gain competence in new skills, and exercise her creativity, but more importantly as an opportunity to gain economic advancement and social mobility. Given the fact that

Vandana chose multiple spaces, it is important to understand why she chose to enter and leave some of them.

Navigating Pathways

The trope of pathways fittingly captures Vandana’s independent and intersecting personal and musical trajectories. The concept of pathways effectively captures her journey through various music-making spaces. It emphasizes the complex or direct routes she took toward or away from a certain space. It emphasizes the factors and choices that shaped her trajectory, her decisions, and her actions over time. The notion of multiple pathways sheds light on the immense possibilities for a liminal figure like

Vandana.

The notion of pathways evokes the image of navigating several spaces.

Vandana’s choice to navigate these paths within the cover scene is not unique; thousands of amateur and self-taught musicians perform within these different cover spaces, hoping to gain recognition within the cover scene, but more importantly hoping to enter mainstream film music production. Seen through Vandana’s story, these pathways to cover culture and beyond may be understood as emerging from the specific historical, political, cultural moment—neoliberal India—which has set the stage for the proliferation of a vibrant cover scene for Tamil film songs in Chennai. Vandana’s story bears traces of other female musicians who experience varying degrees of oppression, having to conform to traditional norms within the cover scene, the film

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music industry, and within the larger context of contemporary urban life. Following her through cover spaces also sheds light on many shared attitudes and values among amateur and self-taught musicians who yearn for fame and strive for success through cover performance. Even if Vandana’s circumstances and experiences were unique, there were still musical practices and people who paved the path for her. She, in turn, has inspired and influenced many amateur live and studio musicians and sound producers who look up to her as a model to emulate. The voices and actions of these and other musicians whose paths intersected with ours collectively helped make sense of a vibrant cover scene for Tamil film song in Chennai. There were numerous individuals I came to know, some whose voices I included, and others who never made it into this project; nevertheless, as our pathways intersected within and across various spaces, their performance, participation, shared meanings, values, and attitudes have helped uncover deeper insights.

Music-making opportunities for suburban, self-taught musicians and sound producers can mean moving beyond small-scale studios to participate in larger musical activities within urban city life. Coming from the suburbs, navigating a large urban environment and culture in the heart of the city can be daunting. Moreover, physical distance between multiple music-making spaces requires taking public transport or finding more ideal means to commute. Pathways, therefore, provide a way for understanding how other socio-musical participants’ journeys coincided with Vandana’s.

It emphasizes and illuminates the relationships she established with these people, as well as the activities they engaged in across time and space.

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Restriction and Freedom from Norms of Female Respectability

On these routes, Vandana encountered both freedom from and pressure to conform to traditional norms of female respectability. Sometimes, she expressed shock, and at other times awe, as she watched other women conform to or deviate from the norm. As she, and her sister Vagu, navigated physical space, they found themselves dealing with traditional gendered norms. Their neighbor, a middle-aged man, chided their father that it was inappropriate for him to allow his two unmarried girls to roam around with young boys: “Tōḷ mēla kaiyai veccuṭṭāṅka!” (Their hands were on his shoulder!), he exclaimed in horror, describing how they held on to him for dear life as they rode on their male friend’s bike through their vicinity. Such forms of physical contact in public for the average, middle-class Tamilian is typically considered appropriate only between a married woman and her husband. Furthermore, the neighbor also complained that the girls were bringing young men (their friends and collaborators) into the studio late at night. He complained they were spoiling the reputation of the neighborhood and setting a bad example for other young girls. Young sound producers who follow in A.R. Rahman’s footsteps frequently work late into the night and into the wee hours of the morning within their small-scale and home recording spaces. Traditional notions of female respectability, however, still dictate how middle- class women must act, speak, and behave within private and public spaces. For young women like Vandana and Vagu, therefore, pursuing these opportunities was much more than just a musical choice.

While self-taught, female musicians like Vandana and Vagu could easily brush aside conservative comments and continue to live their daily lives in anonymity, the pressure to conform to norms of female respectability is even stronger for popular

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married female film musicians. These popular female musicians, who hail from upper- middle class backgrounds and are in the public eye, must seek permission from their husbands and husbands’ families to pursue individual careers in music. Families often only allow music-making if it does not interfere with family responsibilities. During my fieldwork, it was alarming to notice how popular female artists had to take extra precautions to ensure they presented themselves as modest and respectable, not only in public, but also in their performances. Husbands had to approve of their work before they published it online to ensure that their wife’s dalliance with music did not affect their family’s reputation. A female singer, who put together a “making-of video” of one of her songs, included footage of her working with a male sound producer within his studio; her husband demanded that she edit him out of the footage because he deemed it inappropriate for his wife to be seen making music with men. Another husband did not want his wife to be featured in the song against the background of a beach even though she would be modestly clad. Public spaces like studios and beaches, typically viewed as male domains, are still not appropriate locales for female artists. Not surprisingly, these once popular mainstream female musicians, now married, have given up successful public careers and found a creative outlet in producing covers, mash-ups, and original songs, pre-approved by their husbands.

For Vandana, however, navigating individual spaces and opportunities beyond her local vicinities of Valasaravakkam and Velachery was much easier. Traveling through different locations within the city on her bike, over time, established familiar landmarks and familiar routes: friends’ houses, temples, school, malls, and theatres.

Her geographical pathways stretched from familiar suburban spaces and crisscrossed

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via unfamiliar urban arenas in Chennai. Since there were no fixed or established spaces for cover production and performance, she and her fellow cover participants typically marked out their own spatial settings and networks as they traversed these different pathways. Operating within multiple dynamic, fluid musical spaces provided a wider view of possibilities and opportunities—a map—which helped her forge new connections and musical practices, which, in turn, allowed her to carve out a musical path, that was, and is, uniquely hers.

Sustaining, Enduring and Ephemeral Pathways

For Vandana, some musical pathways proved more enduring and lucrative than others; these pathways became familiar routes and helped establish routines. For example, when Vandana lived with her family, each morning she got dressed, and headed out to the studio a few streets away from their apartment. At the studio, she began her morning by turning on the ‘Om nama shivaya’ chant, and performed puja to the deities. Such routines sustained her spiritually and enhanced her creativity. On days when the studio was free from work with clients, Vandana spent her time in the studio experimenting with covers and original compositions.

There were other cover spaces, like Airtel Super Singer— the music reality television show—that appeared to be ephemeral, yet they also provided a sense of permanence (Chapter 6). In general, music reality television perpetuates a sense of continuity in its rags-to-riches narrative for its middle-class contestants. There is a sense of durability within this space for cover performance; many others have trodden the path before to set an example. And there will be others who continue to follow this path to fame and success within the cover scene and beyond into mainstream music production. The physical and metaphorical retreading of this path within the cover scene

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makes it more enduring than others. It has fostered collective practice for self-fashioning within the cover scene.

Some pathways that initially appeared more sustainable than others frequently turned out to be short-lived. #fametamil’s real-time live streams were, in a sense, ephemeral; unlike recorded YouTube video performances, audiences had to be present online during the performance to witness the event. For Vandana, #fametamil appeared to be a lucrative, long-time opportunity. On one of her live broadcasts, she assured her fans and followers that even if she were to become a popular, professional mainstream artist, she would continue to use #fametamil as a platform to stay connected with her fans and followers. Unfortunately, #fametamil was a short-lived phenomenon.

Technological, managerial, and financial constraints forced #fametamil to shut down operations in Chennai in August 2016 (Chapter 7). There were other cover spaces, which appeared to be transient: The demand for live musicians at concert performances, fundraisers, and inaugural events depended entirely upon the nature of the event, the budget, and sponsorship. Wedding gigs were typically seasonal. Live concert performances, like fund-raisers, depended on sponsorship and the demand for self-taught musicians (Chapter 4). Opportunities to work with studio clients and voice students depended on individuals’ interest (Chapter 5). For Vandana, the prospect of positioning herself as a vocal coach and gaining wider visibility on Airtel Super Singer

Season 5 was a one-time opportunity (Chapter 6). Depending on her economic situation, Vandana was free to choose—sometimes forced to pursue—certain paths; she allowed herself to leave or return to opportunities that overlapped or intersected with musicians who shared similar interests.

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Live cover performances sustain artists professionally and financially, but they are transitory. Because wedding gigs are typically seasonal, cover bands, light music orchestras, and troupes rely on corporate shows and other live events for their source of income during the off-season (Chapter 4). Furthermore, during the 1990s, the emergence of the DJ saw a decline in demand for live music at weddings. However, as the trend to have popular Super Singers perform at weddings has recently become a marker of status for the wedding party, the demand for contemporary live bands has increased. But even that trend is slowly waning.

On May 12, 2018, Oorka, a popular, local, independent, instrumental rock band that focuses on original music posted on their Facebook page, “A month ago, we got a call to perform for a wedding reception at a venue in Chennai. Today, we performed a full set for the first time, for the wedding reception. It feels great to see people of all age groups receiving it well, in spite of not playing any film music. Thank you all for the support. All originals and no covers” (Figure 8-1). Oorka’s comments suggest that the vibrant cover scene that Chennai has fostered for Tamil film music is slowly paving the way for the emergence of independent artists and their original compositions. Stiff competition and pressure, both within mainstream and cover production, has more recently resulted in musicians forging their own paths as independent artists. No longer do popular and cover artists seek out success and stardom only within mainstream and the cover scene.

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Figure 8-1. Tamil Rock Band Oorka’s post on Facebook on May 12 performing original music at a wedding reception. Screenshot from Oorka’s Facebook page.

In 2014, Rahul Nambiar, a popular playback singer, conceptualized an original song called Kuppai, which means “trash” in Tamil. Following in Rahman’s footsteps,

Nambiar produced his single in three other Indian regional languages: "Kachra" (Hindi),

"Cheththa" (Telugu), and "Kuppa" (Malayalam).2 More recently, emerging talent agencies have made initiatives that create a pool of independent artists. In June 2018,

Vandana signed a three-year contract with one such company called “Monkstar,” a

2 Rahul Nambiar Kuppai [Tamil] Rahul Nambiar ft. Lady Kash & Krissy online, Accessed June 12, 2018 https: //www.reverbnation.com/rahulnambiar4/song/22241619-kuppai-tamil-rahul-nambiar-ft-lady.

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Hyderabad-based3 talent agency that envisions making “independent music a standalone industry in India”4 (Figure 8-2).

Figure 8-2. Vandana (extreme left) features as an independent artiste on Monkstar’s website. Screenshot of Monkstar’s website.

Monkstar artists like Vandana are required to write, compose, and record original songs, and in return the company funds production costs and promises to promote the artists and their work. While there has been a recent shift in Chennai to support indie artists, it must be noted that this is only a small initiative and is susceptible to change along with new trends in technology and popular music practices. Popular Tamil film music still holds a privileged, enduring place in Chennai.

3 Hyderabad is the capital of the south-eastern state of Andhra Pradesh.

4 We Are Monkstar website. Accessed June 18, 2018. http://www.monkstarmusic.com/.

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Pathways Leading to Success and Failure

The cover scene offers an alternate path to earn income and acquire fame.

However, it still does not bestow the prestige that comes with being part of Tamil film music production. Airrtel Super Singer, one of the more lucrative cover performance spaces, provides opportunities to gain wider visibility and earn financial rewards, as well as a chance to enter Tamil film music production. In the role Vandana adopted as a vocal coach to Lord Labakdas, she envisioned that the potential reward of gaining wider visibility would outweigh the potential risk of failure. While she anticipated gaining wider visibility on transnational media, it was a space that led to rejection and failure—twice

(Chapter 6). Such pathways within the cover scene that highlight struggles, loss, and failure as part of the journey, avoid any misleading notion that stability and success is guaranteed or permanent on a musical career path within the cover scene.

Choice, Decision, and Agency

Numerous factors shaped Vandana’s actions, choices, and decisions to participate in these various spaces; some decisions she made through agency, others depended on social choices. Depending on her economic situation, Vandana was free to choose—sometimes forced to pursue—certain paths. She allowed herself to leave or return to those opportunities which overlapped or intersected with musicians who shared similar interests. For instance, teaching voice students was an economic necessity. When more profitable opportunities came her way, she re-scheduled students’ lessons, or her students either lost interest or turned to other instructors, and this route ceased to be an enduring avenue for her (Chapter 5). As paths led her to or away from certain spaces, they created future opportunities and networking possibilities.

Sometimes they merely existed for the enjoyment of the experience. As routes

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intersected or took her on new paths, she was required to make further decisions.

Making choices meant risking failure, but in some instances these choices led her to success and new forms of knowledge. Ephemeral paths outgrew themselves and perished; as she seized new opportunities, she re-fashioned her image to gain acceptance with certain urban groups.

Pathways and Persistence

In her work on women’s music within subcultures, Cynthia Lont introduces the concept of “persistence” as a process of survival in an ever-changing mainstream without losing one’s identity.5 Vandana's story and her trajectory exemplify persistence in the face of struggles, both personally and professionally. As her pathways intersected across each cover space, she has faced challenges where other musicians would have taken the easy route, yet she chose to persist and to forge ahead. Persistence lies in her attempts to remain financially secure while where she relentlessly sought out pursuits that would allow her to maintain autonomy. Vandana’s approach has, of course, changed over time, as evidenced by the many paths she has traveled, and by her ever-shifting self-presentation strategies. As new opportunities emerged, she strove to actively re-define and re-invent herself. She continues to persist on her path to enter

Tamil film music production. Persistence also lies in her tireless, unwavering devotion to her faith, her music, and to Tarun.

As ethnographer I, too, have persisted. In the early days of my fieldwork, I persisted until I met Vandana. There were days when I would have to sit around with

5 Cynthia Lont, “Persistence of Subcultural organizations: An Analysis Surrounding the process of Subcutural Change,” Communication Quarterly 38(1), 1990 1-12.

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the Mazan sisters waiting for things to happen. There were moments during fieldwork when I wondered if this was what I was meant to do. I persisted. In my writing, I wanted to tell Vandana's story. She wanted me to tell her story. I wanted my fieldwork experiences to come alive. I had to be persistent as I wrote about the possibilities, the changes that cover culture has enabled for women's changing musical roles in Chennai.

Epilogue

In April 2016, after Vandana left her family and home to gain personal and professional freedom, there was no looking back. Despite the numerous times her father begged her to return, she stood by her decision:

Nina, leaving home was the best thing. I will never go back. Never. Ever. I have so much freedom to do my own work as a musician. I can do my own work. I can meet Tarun when I want. I can go out with my friends whenever I want. At home, they don’t want me to do anything. They won’t let me do anything on my own. They tell me this person is like this, that person is like that, and things won’t work out. They tell me I’m stupid, I’m an idiot, I can’t handle anything properly, I can’t do anything by myself. They say I will spoil everything or start something and not finish it. But I want to do things on my own. Whether I can do it properly or not, I want to experience everything for myself. I want to try. I want to learn. I want to make mistakes. I don’t want to be afraid and not do anything. I have to keep doing something all the time. No matter what or where I am, I will always keep doing something creative.6

In late 2016, Tarun moved to a new job in Indore, North India. Vandana was afraid the distance would make it impossible for them to get married in the future. Later that year, Tarun’s father passed away. His younger sister could only marry in October

2018, forcing Tarun and Vandana to post-pone their plans to marry. According to

Vadana, Tarun’s conservative family, from a small north Indian town, adheres to norms

6 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, March 26, 2016.

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of female respectability; they are hesitant to have a “daughter-in-law who is in the media.”7 Ever since Vandana developed the desire to marry and start a family of her own, she has frequently been torn between notions of tradition and modernity, of fulfilling her career and personal desires. She constantly faces the need to conform, to strip away the glamorous personality she so carefully crafted for her musical identity.

While she is still eager to pursue her profession as a female sound producer and composer in the film industry, she is also anxious to please her future in-laws. Over the last four years, her image has undergone considerable alterations from a modern young girl to traditional woman (Figure 8-3). Vandana’s choice to marry and raise a family has forced her to reconsider her life goals and make compromises.

Figure 8-3. Vandana’s metamorphosis from modern young girl to traditional woman. Photos from Vandana’s Facebook page.

Over the last two years, Vandana’s network of self-taught musicians and sound producers have provided her the opportunities to work as a freelance vocalist for recordings and live shows, a voice dubbing artist, and a producer of jingles,

7 Vandana Mazan, interview with author, April 6, 2018.

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advertisements, and short films. For a few months, Vandana worked with a group of male sound producers in Angela Studios and Fx Studio. In early 2018 she moved on to work as a freelance sound producer at K-Studio, where she worked as a sub-contractor to an intermediary in the film music industry. Within this studio, Vandana has worked on the soundtrack for a Telegu film; her work on the film remains uncredited because her boss was a sub-contractor.

Working for a sub-contractor without any credit forced her to take charge of her future career path. On April 29, 2018, Vandana posted on her Facebook profile:

“Branding makes a difference” along with a logo which read, “Soundscape Audio

Production” (Figure 8-5 left). Later that day, she created a Facebook page exclusively for Soundscape Audio Production: “Am super excited to launch my Audio Production

House “SOUNDSCAPE”. Its gonna be a one stop solution for all ur requirements regarding sounds! Need all ur love and support. Thanks a ton to the supporting pillar of

SOUNDSCAPE” (Figure 8-4 right).

Figure 8-4. Soundscape Audio Production Logo designed by her friend Alex. Screenshot from Vandana’s Facebook page.

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Alex, Vandana’s best friend and sound producer, helped make the logo. Along with Alex and Abjaksh, her co-sound producer at S studio, the three freelance musicians and sound producers agreed to distribute tasks according to their talents and strengths on incoming projects and work within a shared home studio space. On April 30, with the assistance of her photographer and videographer friend, Prabhu, Vandana released a promotional video on Facebook (Figure 8-5):

Figure 8-5. Vandana’s promotional video for “SOUNDSCAPE” filmed by Prabhu. Screenshot from Vandana’s Facebook page.

A few days later, Vandana sent me a WhatsApp message: “started getting projects.

Works for soundscape…singles, Ads, with decent pay. Now I got the English single in

20 K budget And another acapella Marati track for 18k. Am hiring Alex to mix. And I do the track. Am singing too.” Facebook posts on May 8 present images of her within her studio space: “SOUNDSCAPE..On full throttle ahead..Happy to be lined up with projects”8 (Figure 8-7).

8 Vandana Mazan, WhatsApp message to author, May 6, 2018.

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Figure 8-6. Vandana working on SOUNDSCAPE projects in her studio. Screenshot from Vandana’s Facebook page.

Continuing to discuss her future, Vandana said, “Nina, roaming, like this everywhere, every day, I feel a homeless, a nomad. I want my own place—my own home, my own studio.” Vandana has plans to marry, set up a home, and a studio of her own.

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319 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Nina Menezes completed her Bachelor (2001) and Master (2003) of Arts in

English Literature at Stella Maris College, Chennai South India, and a Master of

Philosophy (2007) from the University of Madras in Chennai, South India. In 2010, she earned her Master of Arts in Voice Performance from Andrews University, Michigan. In

2018, she received her Ph.D. in Music History and Literature with an emphasis in ethnomusicology and a doctoral minor in voice performance at the University of Florida.

Nina has presented her research at the local and annual conferences for the

Society for Ethnomusicology between 2014 and 2017. In 2017, she received the Nazir

Ali Jairazbhoy Prize Student Paper Award, and the Wong Tolbert Student Paper Prize

(Honorable Mention) for her contribution to South Asian Performance, and Gender and

Women’s studies respectively.

Nina has extensive performance experience as a soprano soloist, as a member of ensembles and choirs in India and abroad. In addition to concert and recital performances, she has held a twenty-five-year recording career in the film industry. Her voice featured on soundtracks for award-winning films with renowned film music directors such as A.R. Rahman and Ilaiyaraaja, Harris Jeyaraj, Yuvan Shankar Raja,

Karthk raja; her most recent collaboration in 2016 was with film musician Justin

Prabhakaran. Nina’s experiences within the film music industry provide a unique perspective in her research on film music production and cover culture in India.

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