Melody Of Love: Kavita And L Subramaniam

NEW DELHI (ANI) – Renowned singer Kavita Krishnamurti and international phenomenon L Subramaniam are truly made for each other.

Subramaniam has composed several musical compositions for ballet performances for well-known dance companies such as the San Jose Ballet Company, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, and the Mariinsky Ballet. He also composed music for films including ‘Salaam Bombay’, ‘Mississippi Masala’, ‘Little Buddha’ and ‘Cotton Mary’.

Krishnamurti married L Subramaniam in November 1999. However, everything is not planned when it comes to relationships, and this is true in the case of these two artists. The ace singer recalled that she never thought of getting married.

She said, “I was a confirmed bachelor and not young at all. It’s a very late marriage for me.”

Subramaniam recalled how he met her, saying, “I was doing a project. So, I was looking for some singer. I asked one of my friends, can you send me some cassettes of different singers? So, a whole bunch of cassettes I got of all the top singers at that time. I was listening one by one. Then I picked this voice and said this would be more suitable and it has something extra which I was looking for. I told my friend, you know, this singer, this is what I wanted. Find out the details.”

He continued, “Then in one of the projects she sang, and I was doing an album for Warner Brothers, Global Fusion album. So, I was in Bombay (now Mumbai) doing some basic recordings. And she was singing in Shanmugananda Hall that day. So, he said you should come and listen to this. My friend said, “You listen to the tape. Why don’t you come and listen to her singing? She was singing that day.”

He traveled from the studio to the venue she was performing at. “So, from the studio, from one end, I gave a break to the musicians, and engineer, and drove one hour to go there. And by the time I went there, there was a break. So, then I said, I can’t make my musicians, everybody waits there. So let us go back. He said, no, no, sir, you should come and just at least meet her.”

And then an interesting meeting happened. “So he took me there. Immediately, some guy who was taking a lot of pictures, with everybody. He said, sir, sir, please come and sit here. I thought maybe he’s a musician or something. I thought he was going to call her. He didn’t call her for a while. I was sitting there. Later on, he told me, sir, I mean, I’ll send the picture of your daughter to your house,” Subramaniam smiles.

He recalled how he thought Subramaniam was her father, “So he thought I was sitting there to get the pictures or something. I said, okay. Then I didn’t meet her and came back. Later, I met her in a studio. Before that, we did… a project for 1000 children, something like that. That was after this. So, we went to, for the recording, she came.”

However, things changed and gradually they fell in love. For Subramaniam, Kavita’s voice was one of the main reasons that brought them closer. He added, “Because of voice and because of singing. Strangely, no, long time back, I think Sri Sathya Sai Baba told her.”

The ‘Hawa Hawaii’ singer added to the conversation, “Baba, always used to say, like every time I went and sang in Puttaparthi, he would always say, Krishnamurti, father’s name, husband’s name. So, one day, I said, Baba, you know, it’s my father’s name. I’m not married, and I don’t want to get married. Then he said something in Telugu to his person and the person translated, he said, you will meet somebody because of your music, and you will get married. There’s no question.”

Music became a binding force, but Subramaniam said that he also liked her because of her down-to-earth nature and simplicity.

As he mentioned, “I met a lot of people, even in the Western field, some of them are down-to-earth and simple, even the success doesn’t take over. But she’s very, very simple and down-to-earth. And at the time, wherever I went, the children were with me. I couldn’t leave them anywhere. They were very small. My daughter was around 11, or 12, and she was very young. And my son was eight and my other son was about three. So, all are very young. So, wherever I went for recording. I used to take them everywhere.”

Being a single parent after his first wife Viji Subramaniam’s death he was facing a lot of challenges as he used to travel because of his concerts and during that time she supported him.

He added, “She immediately gelled, and she used to play with the children. She was very happy with the children running around and everything. And with my own career running around all the time. For about eight to ten months, I used to travel, not in one place. Fortunately, we had an aunt, Kaveri Amma, mother’s sister. She was there after I shifted to India. She was there all along. And unfortunately, she died. So that was the time we met and recorded and started working. Then we started doing some projects exclusively for her. Like writing. Before that, I used to do a lot of instrumental work. Then we started writing.”

The two are quite busy. They work together at different concerts. The couple founded the Subramaniam Academy of Performing Arts in Bengaluru and organized the yearly Lakshminarayana Global Music Festival.