S. Janaki: The Isai Arasi who established the voice of the rural, female heroine

If Bharathiraja taught people how to take care of villages, then it was surely S. Janaki who taught them to listen to the women in these villages. Bharathiraja’s sweeping rural landscapes were accompanied by excellent acoustics. There’s no scientific way to describe how this combination clothed folklore as a living, breathing, emergent way of life through celluloid, but it’s safe to say they achieved something there.

Janaki Amma’s voice gave shape to the heroes, their fears, desires, hopes and dreams, even as Bharathiraja wrote them the lion emptiness on the screen. Get the classic, highly acclaimed 16 Vayathinile aand great Sendoora Poove. A. young Sridevi is adrift and dreamless; It begins with a slant, and as the melody progresses, a light, delicate eroticism creeps in as the young girl asks the breeze to convey its message not timidly or hesitantly, but with the confidence that Janaki’s voice brings to Mayilu’s character. Like the director, Janaki Amma’s singing created a safe and legitimate space for female desire. Even if they will be punished by the real world later.

While singing for rural women, Janaki ensured that her voice had a timbre and grain that suited Illayaraja’s earthy music and Bharathiraja’s visuals. The fullness of it gave women the freedom that some dream of, but few achieve. With his incredible talent not just for singing but also for performance, he would pack a hesitation or a sob, a laugh, a longing or joy, completely in sync with it, no stranger to the rural background, just like his singing partner the late SPBalasubrahmanyam.

In another classic Poovarasampoo Poothachu, A song that could only come from a village in the movie Kızhakke Pogum Rail, Janaki Amma’s voice oscillates between flirtation, shyness, desire, hope and at the same time the fervent appeal to god to make it happen, the weight of what is to come, just like a female child might feel under these circumstances. Inside Alaigal Oivathillai, Located in a seaside village Aayiram Thamarai Mottukale, Together with SPB he manages to bring the delicate, fleeting physical intimacy of the duet like young Radha and Karthik discover each other.

This credibility she brought to the song probably endeared Janaki to her heroes, fans, stars, composers and directors. It wasn’t for nothing that he was called IsaiInter (The music queen) was able to deliver her voice so well to accurately convey what any woman would feel intensely. The richness of the rural landscape we see in Tamil cinema owes as much to Janaki Amma as it does to Bharathiraja, both of whom are now deceased.