“The rage that emanates when she performs on stage is inspiring. Expressing our pain through music.”įrom the time she joined the band, Isaivani has had the tremendous urge to break the glass ceiling of being a slum woman from a lower caste and succeed as a gaana singer, says Tenma. “The Casteless collective is about speaking out about our problems, the problems of the marginalised, women, men, transgender people, farmers and more. “No one has the right to decide what I can like or want to do,” she says. People began to notice that there was a woman in this band of gaana singers some began to complain that she shouldn’t be in it. In 2018, the band released Beef Song in reaction to the lynching of Dalits in 2019 they made news again with I’m Sorry Ayyappa, on the issue of women being allowed into the Sabarimala temple. That’s how I entered The Casteless Collective,” she says. “So I went for an audition where Tenma, the co-founder, immediately okayed me. Ranjith was forming a band and it could be a good platform for her. Then, in 2017, gaana singer and music composer Sabesh Solomon called and told her that the filmmaker Pa. To supplement her income, she took jobs in data entry and at the post office. She began to cover modern renditions of gaana songs because she found they got a good response from young audiences, “because of their catchy tunes, I think, and the socially and politically relevant lyrics”.
‘Isai’ means music in Tamil, so I guess it was destined,” she says. “I discontinued my studies in Class 12 because I wanted to sing. Isaivani began her music career as a cover artist, singing Tamil film songs. What’s it like being the only woman in the band and the first known woman singer in the genre? “I grew up in a slum where there was no difference between men and women so I felt no fear or awkwardness,” she says. Isaivani is the only woman, but not the only Dalit. The band is made up of 12 poets and musicians aged 20 to 32. Some of it relates to the politics of patriarchy and the dual marginalisation of the Dalit woman. Much of that commentary relates to caste.
They are known for taking what were songs of mourning and rewriting the lyrics to turn them into pieces of political commentary. I learnt by listening to him play,” she says - Isaivani has for three years been part of a gaana fusion band called The Casteless Collective. “I’m very happy but I can’t believe it.”Ī self-taught artist - “my father is a musician who plays the harmonium. It just feels unreal, says the 24-year-old, speaking over phone from Chennai. Over the years, locals adapted the songs, added lively percussion, fast-paced melodies. The gaana tradition can be traced to the 17th century, when Sufi singers sang of life, death, friendship, love and daily struggles, to mark the deaths of slaves in north Madras, so that in death they might find liberation. Isaivani has successfully broken an age-old tradition, which has led other young female gaana singers to come forward and express themselves,” the BBC said in its note. “Isaivani is a distinctive gaana singer… can be considered an achievement by itself. She was recently featured on the BBC’s 2020 list of the world’s 100 most inspiring and influential women, alongside actor and activist Jane Fonda, Oxford University coronavirus vaccine researcher Sarah Gilbert, and three other Indians - Bilkis Bano for her activism, the para-athlete Manasi Joshi, and teen climate activist Ridhima Pandey. Isaivani is simultaneously warm and fierce.
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