Jaya Kumar — Composer and Lead Singer
Jaya Kumar is a singer-song-writer, and a psychologist and counselor. She was born in Madras into a musical family – the esteemed composer Sri Lalita Dasar was her great uncle – and trained extensively in both Carnatic and Hindustani classical music. Her father worked for most of Jaya’s formative years in Calcutta, Shillong, and other parts of North Eastern India, which meant that she grew up surrounded by several other genres of music as well, everything from Rabindra Sangeet and Nazrul Geet to the popular Hindi film music and Western pop/folk/rock music of the era.
Shortly after marriage, she moved to Muscat, Oman, where she became interested in ghazals and started performing extensively onstage. Over the next few decades, she extended her repertoire to light/film music and even Western music performances. When her children were born, Jaya drew immense joy from motherhood, and became very passionate about children’s causes and their physical and mental development. In 2009, she completed her Masters in Psychology from the University of Madras, also doing workshops and courses in Music Therapy.
In 2011, she became a grandmother for the first time, and discovered that being a grandparent too was a joy unlike any other! The ‘Fun with Slokas’ project is a reflection of all that Jaya holds closest to her heart – her love of music, her deep fondness for children, and her belief in using music to teach, and to heal worry and anxiety in even the very young.
In the past decade, she has been composing extensively. True to the varied musical influences of her youth, the compositions are eclectic, including bhajans, ghazals, and Western music.
Disha Durga Shyam — The Inspiration
Disha is 6 and a half years old, and studies in Grade 2 in Dubai.
She loves music and dance of all sorts. This entire project was inspired by the joy she derived from the simple tunes her grandmother created for her!
She also loves art, and the drawings you see on this website are hers. If you watch some of the videos closely, you might catch a glimpse of her, trying her hand at acting too!
Divya Kumar — Singer
Divya is a Dubai-based writer, journalist, singer-song-writer and keyboardist who is trained primarily in Hindustani classical music. She has performed both Indian light music and as an alto in Western choirs, but her main focus remains Western pop/classic rock/folk music.
She spent her early 20s studying and working in the U.S., dabbling in web-design and media studies. She then returned to India, and started working as a senior reporter and feature writer with The Hindu Metroplus in Chennai, covering mainly the book and art beat, before taking a break for the birth of her first child. Divya channeled her experiences of motherhood into writing ‘Toddler Talk’, a light-hearted weekly column on parenting high-maintenance toddlers for the Metroplus in 2014-15. This year, Bloomsbury India published her first novel, the Chennai-based thriller ‘The Shrine of Death’.
Viraj Sharan Kumar — Singer
Viraj holds a dual degree in electronic engineering and mathematics.
He is trained in Hindustani and Carnatic classical music, as well as in Western classical vocals, performing as a baritone in choirs and as a solo artist. Viraj has had a long-standing interest in audio technology and audio engineering, which he is currently pursuing.
R. Chandrasekhar — Music arranger
R. Chandrasekhar is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, music composer and arranger. He is a B.Tech who switched to a full-time music career soon after college, and played guitars and keyboards for Illayaraja and other leading music directors for years — including guitars for the famous ‘Ilaiya Nila’ song! His early training was in Carnatic music, but he later developed a deep appreciation and knowledge of Western music. He teaches Western music theory, guitar, and keyboards.
Suriya Narayanan (The Studio Madras) — Music video director
Suriya has worked as an assistant director under acclaimed film maker Gautham Menon on films like Neethane Yen Ponvasntham (Tamil) and Yetto Velli Pointhi Manasu (Telugu), and associate director for the film Yennai arindhal (Tamil).
Having studied Visual Communication in MCC, he began working in 2007 in SS Music, producing popular shows such as such as Time Out, College Da, VJ Factor, Just Connect and Voice Hunt. This was followed by a stint with NDTV- Hindu, where he produced, scripted and presented a variety of news and feature shows on topics such as lifestyle, realty, education, pets and culture. He has also done an array of photo shoots, and corporate films, including 12 popular ads in Tamil and Kanada – 7UP, Miranda and Poomer being just a few.
Sara Mohan (The Studio Madras)
Sara Mohan is a triple masters, with a post graduate diploma from the Asian College of Journalism, as well as masters degrees in magazine journalism and biodiversity and conservation in the U.K.. Sara worked as a reporter on the features team at NDTV-Hindu where she worked on various shows such as Super Shopper, Pet Tales, Property Matters and more. Since then, she has worked on multiple projects such as ads, net campaigns and corporate films, even contributing to a book on biodiversity in 2014. She continues to work on freelance projects, testing the waters to find the perfect platform to tell the stories she believes the world should hear.
Lakshmi Krishnarathnam — Sanskrit Adviser
Lakshmi Krishnarathnam is a PhD in Sanskrit from the University of Madras. She was a Sanskrit teacher at the Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan school for 22 years, coaching children for inter-school sloka and Veda recitations. In 2001, she received the ‘Samskrita Mahopadhyaya’ award for a lifetime of educating children in Sanskrit from the Chennai Sanskrit Teachers Association. After retiring in 2002, she founded and ran the Kishore Vihaar playschool for over a decade. She continues to give Sanskrit tuitions at home.
Fun with Slokas 