Vidya Rao

Vidya Rao, from Hyderabad city of India, is one such talented woman, being a singer and a writer. She completed her graduation in Madras and wanted to do her M.A. in Sociology, for that she joined the Delhi School of Economics. She also researched for five years while working with the Centre for Women's Development. Her first book on life was a popular one, namely Heart to Heart, remembering her late guru- Naina Devi. In her book, she wrote what she learned from her nainaji, about the courtesans that they sang thumri , in such a way as they learned it so well and were enough experienced in life.

According to her guru, those who know that love is destined to die soon can sing the pain out of that song. She always learned from her guru that anyone one should always try and sing the songs, once sung by their gurus and always asked her to be proud that they had such extraordinary people above them. To bring out the emotional feeling out of these compositions, thumri played a great role. In the 19th century, the tawaifs created many songs for Kathak, considering the teachings of movement and expression while singing. Rao’s themes included social changes, evolution in tradition and the progression in musical form. She also tells us in the 1950s; nainaji bloomed into a singer, after the death of her husband.

That time the courtesan’s era was ending, and India Radio was newly sponsored and only married ladies were chosen for it. Artists began performing in shows, and classical music was uplifted in the middle class. Rao learned her first dads, through Nainaji, who soaked it from Begum Akhtar Begum Akhtar’s birth name was ‘Akhtari Bai Faizaba >> Read More... , who further grasped it by LachhuMaharaj, in turn, who got it from Kalka Prasad through Kathak.

This shows how the knowledge was so smoothly passed through generations, that is a tradition in which the student not just gets the technicalities of music, but the whole deep inner world of it and the chain goes on for life. This phrase explains us the title of the book.