The Foundation

Nineteen Years at the Feet of Smt. Akhila Siva

Every great river has a source that few stop to seek. For Ram Srivatsan, that source has a name — Smt. Akhila Siva.

From the tender age of five, Ram was placed in the hands of this remarkable musician and teacher, and for the next nineteen years, it was her voice, her discipline, and her musical wisdom that formed the very ground beneath his feet. Nineteen years. That is not tuition — that is a musical upbringing.

Smt. Akhila Siva is a trained vocal musician from the Carnatic Music College, Chennai — and her household has been nothing less than a cradle of Carnatic excellence. Her son, Vidwan N. Vijay Siva, is one of the most celebrated Carnatic vocalists of his generation, a musician who went on to sit at the feet of the legendary Sangeetha Kalanidhi D.K. Jayaraman and later D.K. Pattammal. Her other son, N. Manoj Siva, is an accomplished mridangam artist of considerable standing. Her daughter, Smt. Poorna Siva, is a renowned violinist who has carved a distinguished place for herself in the Carnatic world. That three children of the same home rose to such heights across three different dimensions of Carnatic music — voice, percussion, and strings — is itself a testament to the atmosphere of learning, rigour, and deep musical sensitivity that Smt. Akhila Siva nurtured within her family — and extended with equal generosity to her students.

Ram was one such fortunate student. Under her watchful, exacting, and deeply musical guidance, he absorbed not just compositions and technique but something far more lasting — the attitude of a serious musician. The understanding that music demands patience. That a raga must be felt before it is sung. That the voice is only as good as the ear that governs it.

It is this foundation — unhurried, deep, and lovingly built over nearly two decades — that made everything that followed possible. When Ram later went in deliberate search of the Brinda Bani, when he earned the attention of some of Carnatic music's most formidable musicians — the roots that held him firm had been put there by Smt. Akhila Siva.

In the Carnatic tradition, we speak of the guru not merely as a teacher but as the one who dispels darkness. For Ram, that light was first lit in Smt. Akhila Siva's presence. He carries it forward with gratitude and humility.

To read about the musical tradition Ram then went in search of, and the extraordinary lineage he immersed himself in → The Brinda Bani