Years after retiring as professors in the Department of Folk Arts and Culture at the Madurai Kamaraj University, the couple continues their studies and along with their troupe, conducts stage performances that are sought after by connoisseurs and lovers of folk music around the World. They have devoted a lifetime to painstaking research, collection, revival, and documentation of ancient folk songs and dances, many of which are fast becoming obsolete for want for artists to continue the tradition and also for want of audiences to appreciate them. Coming from an educated and accomplished family of doctors, engineers, and other professionals, the Navaneethakrishnans decided early in life that their mission was to promote Dravidian folk art. Navaneethakrishnan, she has conducted several years of research and study on Tamil folk music and dances. Vijayalakshmi Navaneethakrishnan is a renowned exponent of Tamil folk art. The music transported us through space and time to the remote villages of old where life was simple and lived as a song and dance of joy. My carefully prepared list of questions went out of the window as she went on to talk about the spiritual, social, scientific, religious, cultural and anthropological aspects of folk music and dance, every now and then demonstrating her points with a few lines of song or a few dance steps. In these songs that contain the core of the ancient Dravidian culture, you can read the complete story of a civilization” said Dr.
Between the lines of folk songs lie glimpses of a way of life that was established by our wise ancestors so many millennia ago.
These songs and dances that appear so deceptively simple contain a wealth of inherent meaning about the world, the meaning and purpose of life and scientifically prescribed rules on how to live. “There is a deep underlying thread of spirituality in folk music. The idyll vanished when she resumed the conversation in soft, scholarly tones that she must have used in hundreds of her class lectures and we were back in her large, comfortable guest room lined with photographs and several awards that she had received for her contribution to Tamil folk art. When she began to sing, the earthy, vibrant notes turned the surroundings into the pastoral settings of a quiet village. Her music has an otherworldly quality to it. Vijayalakshmi Navaneethakrishnan reminded me of a village Goddess of her songs.
Looking resplendent in a magenta sari with golden flowers worn in the traditional Tamil kosavam style with matching ethnic jewellery, Dr. Spirituality in Folk Art – Interview with Dr. An edited version of this article was published in a new age magazine Life positive in 2010. I was fortunate to get the answers from Dr.Vijayalakshmi herself during an interview in which she explained about her findings on spirituality in folk art from her research of a lifetime in the subject. Later in life, I sometimes thought about how the pure notes of those folk songs had enchanted me, wondering if folk music was more than the simplistic songs and dances that are usually attributed to it in popular culture.
As the programme concluded after two hours, I remember falling silent, mesmerized by the haunting notes of the music that was so different from the classical ragas that usually filled the house. Navaneeethakrishnan, and their students of folk art. It was the first time that I heard a folk song.
I was a child when I heard her for the first time in a special TV programme of folk music broadcast on the Tamil New Year which was presented by Dr. Vijayalakshmi Navaneethakrishnan has been awarded the Padma Shri, a richly deserved honour and one which elevates the status of the award.