ARTS/ ENTERTAINMENT/ SPORTS
Anupama Devarajan is a seasoned Carnatic musician and Bharatanatyam artist. She has performed professionally in several venues all over India and abroad, also choreographing and curating special thematic productions. She has founded her own Academy of Fine Arts in Mumbai – Vidya Vardhini Fine Arts Academy, through which she trains students in the performing arts.
Hailing from Chennai, the cultural capital for the performing art forms, Ms Anupama was always passionate about music and dance since early childhood. Also a strong performer academically, she has won several awards for her academics as well as extra-curricular activities, including the All-Rounder Women Award from IIM Ahmedabad. she completed her B.E. in Computer Engineering and PGDM from IIM Ahmedabad in 2006, going on to join Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong and later London, in investment banking. After a successful stint in banking, Anupama moved to Mumbai and joined Espandere Advisors as a financial advisory consultant. Throughout her corporate career, she kept in touch with the world of fine arts by performing in stage shows at every opportunity. Her enduring passion for music and dance led her to shift gears from her corporate world to a career in the performing arts.
As a professional Carnatic vocalist and Bharatanatyam artiste, Ms Anupama quickly achieved the rare distinction of being an empanelled graded artiste of both All India Radio (for Carnatic Vocal) as well as Doordarshan (for Bharatanatyam). She is a passionate ambassador in the spread of arts and culture, has conducted several workshops and also performed for social causes and fund-raising events. Apart from running her own Academy of Fine Arts, she is also an honorary elected Member, Managing Committee at Sri Shanmukhananda, a premier cultural institute, tasked primarily with streamlining and expanding their music and dance school in order to promote the classical art forms. Ms Anupama has received several awards and accolades, including the “Padma Bharati” title, “Nritya Nipun” award and “Kamala Power Women” award at the hands of the Governor of Maharashtra, for her contribution to the performing arts.
Congratulations, Anupama for winning the YAA award. How does it feel to be recognized by IIMA?
I think it’s an amazing honour, and I am truly grateful to IIMA for that. Coming back here to receive it is very special in itself, but for me, getting the award in the Arts category is a true validation of my journey so far. The way my career has shifted, and I am now a performing musician and a Bharatanatyam artist, and I think that’s a recognition of the work that I have done in this industry. So I am really grateful.
You have successfully balanced a career in music, dance, and business. So what has motivated you to pursue excellence in all these diverse fields?
I would say my motivation and my support have always been my family and my gurus in the field of music and dance as well. When I was young, my parents, my aunt, my grand mom, have always pushed me to excel in both academics as well as the performing arts. I have been performing since I was in school, and they have taken great care to make sure that even when studies got tough, when I was doing my boards, I still continued to learn and perform. In fact, I remember there was an occasion when I was in college. I think it would have been probably the fourth year of engineering, when there were practical exams happening and but prior to that, there was a tour of mine fixed up where I was supposed to perform in Sri Lanka, in Colombo. So my mom spoke to the HOD and we kind of managed it that I would go for the tour, and then I would come back and give my exams. So I think somehow that balance was maintained, and they ensured that I did both. When I perform on stage, connecting with the audience, telling a story, and conveying emotion through music and dance, has always energised and rejuvenated me. So I think that is a big motivation, and later on, even while working, it was a delicate balance sometimes. I had a demanding career, and there were a couple of months when I would be out of practice and not really perform or learn either music or dance, but then it would even out, and there would be more performances some other part of the year. So that way, it kind of was a delicate see-saw. But luckily, I did not let either one of them go, and in later years, of course, my main source of motivation and support has been my husband, Dev (he won the YAAA 2024), he is my batch-mate from IIMA, and he is very disciplined and focused. His motto has always been to follow your passion, do what you think you are good at, and keep doing it, work hard for it. So I think we really admire each other’s strengths, and I am more of a ‘go with the flow’ kind of person. So I think we have always rubbed off on each other, and he has been a great support and motivation as well.
It takes people decades to even excel in one field, say, singing or dancing. How did you manage to do both?
It was probably because I started early. I started singing, learning music. I used to accompany my mother to music classes when I was three or so. My family enjoys music. My mom and my grandmom, both of them sing. So I think kind of when you start early, even when there are a few months of when you don’t train the body, still remember there is muscle memory. Similarly, dance again was something that I started when I was about six or seven years old.
Are there particular performances or milestones in your artistic career that hold special significance for you?
I would say my journey at IIMA was a big life changer. Till then, I had only sung Carnatic music. I wasn’t really exposed to many other forms of music, but when I came here to IIMA, it kind of opened my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities. And there were so many of my peers, my seniors, who came from different cultures and different genres of music, I got to jam with them and learn more about it. In fact, there were a couple of seniors at that time who pushed me into auditioning for Saregamapa Zee TV, and it happened on campus also. I had never sung one film song before that, and they said, “You have to sing. And I didn’t know what film songs were there that I could sing also. So they selected a song for me, and they made me learn it, and they even helped me with the lyrics again. Girl from Chennai, it was difficult to pronounce Hindi. Now, of course, I’m much better, but at that time, they made me learn it. I even got till the semi-finals of the Saregamapa at that time. So that really opened my mind, and it changed my way of thinking, and really opened my mind to so many genres, and I was able to experiment and work with different people. So that was one of the big experiences of my life.
When I came here to IIMA, it kind of opened my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities. And there were so many of my peers, my seniors, who came from different cultures and different genres of music, I got to jam with them and learn more about it. In fact, there were a couple of seniors at that time who pushed me into auditioning for Saregamapa Zee TV, and it happened on campus also.
I think the other turning point would probably, I would say COVID and lockdown. I mean, it was fortunate that it happened in that way. But I think in the artistic world, it opened up a lot of possibilities online. So things that we never thought would be possible before the home became a stage, a makeshift stage, and we started giving online performances, and there were so many collaborations with artists, everything online, from the safe space of your home. So there were multiple productions that I did during that time, and collaborations and work was also a little slow at that time, because I was working as a consultant. So businesses kind of slowed down. It gave me the opportunity to put more of my energies into music and dance. And that was also around the time when a lot of students approached me from different cities in India and also overseas, asking for classes and online teaching became a norm, so everything kind of changed. And so once everything came back to normalcy, I told my boss that I wanted to kind of pursue this little more seriously, and she was also very supportive and happy to she said the spot would be open if I came back after some time. It was around that time, within a span of a few months, in fact, that I was empanelled to be a graded artist of both All India Radio as a Carnatic musician and Doordarshan as a Bharatanatyam performer. So that kind of was the validation that I was going somewhere in the right direction and I could do something with this. So that’s when I started focusing more on dance. So then I quit my corporate career. Quitting was a tough choice to make, but I knew that the safety net of my friends and family and everybody around me, the support system, was so strong that I had the confidence to pursue my passion.
When I tell my students, if you think that at some point you have finished learning everything, then I think you lost it, because there is always a next level that we can aspire to.
What would be your advice to students who want to pursue creative fields?
The most important thing is to keep adapting and learning. I think how we take it forward to the next level is always about adaptability and continuous learning and evolving. So in the performing arts, where we have music and dance, where we have a very strong guru-shishya parampara. So it is important to have a guru, to have a good bond with the guru. With all my gurus, I share a very deep sense of I speak to them very often, and many of them are my very close friends. So I think that kind of so you have a very nurturing environment where you have a constant feedback, both criticism and good things. And you know that there is always a next level where you have to go to and there is somebody pushing you so that continuous level of continuous need to learn, need to evolve, need to improve yourself. I think that is key to success, not just in the performing arts, but in any industry. When I tell my students, if you think that at some point you have finished learning everything, then I think you lost it, because there is always a next level that we can aspire to. I think I have to thank all my gurus for kind of teaching that to me from the very beginning, learnt from like several senior teachers National Award winners in Chennai growing up. Now I am under Guru Srimati Radha Nambudri in Mumbai for music, and Guru Gita Venkateshwar for dance. And both of them are real pillars in my life. I think when we have somebody like that, when with whom we relate to, and who is going to nurture us, I think we will always know that there is a next step that we are going to go towards. So I think continuous learning and adaptability are the key.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/h9oj6EYjAzw?si=WK_7GGGGTUfaT_Zm
