Venmani Haridas
Indian singer
Kalamandalam Venmani Haridas (15 September 1946 – 17 September 2005) was an Indian Kathakali musician known for his rendition of Kathakali padams (playback songs) in the classical dance-drama tradition of Kerala. He was born at Venmani Mana, a Namboodiri household with a literary background, in Vellarappilly village near Aluva, close to Kochi. Haridas developed an interest in Kathakali by watching performances staged at the nearby Akavoor Mana. He received his early training in music under Mundakkal Sankara Varrier and later learned Kathakali padams from stories such as Rukmini Swayamvaram and Kuchela Vritham.
Early life
In 1960, he joined Kerala Kalamandalam and learned music under leading Kathakali musicians like Kalamandalam Neelakantan Nambisan, Sivaraman Nair and Kalamandalam Gangadharan Nair. He was the first student of Kalamandalam Gangadharan when the latter became a teacher in the institution. Haridas was known as a very talented student during his stay in Kalamandalam. Kalamandalam Sankaran Embranthiri, Madambi Subramanian Namboodiri, Kalamandalam Hyderali and Kalamandalam Subrahmanyan were immediate seniors to Haridas in the Kathakali Music section. In 1968, completing the course in Kalamandalam he joined Darpana, a noted performing arts institute set up by the famous danseuse Mrinalini Sarabhai in Ahmedabad, as a music teacher. This stint beyond the Vindhyas exposed him to various styles of north Indian renditions, including classical Hindustani music, which in later years will become a mounted musical backup for his innovations as a kathakali singer.
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This entry incorporates text from “Venmani Haridas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.