Software takes backseat to music

bangalore: playing veena, singing and software. which field do you prefer? pose this question to nanditha, the kannada playback singer and she says, ``i want to be a singer first - software comes a close second.'' true to her words, nanditha has proved her talent as a singer with over 100 songs from nearly 70 films and 700 songs and a repertoire which includes folk, devotional and light music.her films include yajamaana (navile..), mathadana (idu modalane haadu..), sri manjunath (brahma..) and munnudi (arabiya kadalali...) among others. nanditha began her singing career once she passed the veena vidwath examination and began learning vocal music. the year 1995 saw nanditha's musical talent in full spate with the release of the cassette muthu bandide (krithis of kanakadasa) with v. manohar scoring the music. and at that time, she was in her first year in college. with music directors in the kannada film industry watching her talent carefully, nanditha got a call from hamsalekha under whose tutelage, she developed as a track singer. "in fact, the whole period was like a training for me in film music," she remembers. "i was studying for my 2nd be exams at that time." nanditha soon evolved as a singer and got a break when hamsalekha himself asked her to sing a solo for the kannada film habba. later, rajan-nagendra invited her to sing a song with s.p. balasubramanyam for the film jagath kiladi. "i was very excited," she adds. "sp liked my voice and i was thrilled.'' the kannada film industry soon accepted her as a singer of the future and offers came to her one after the other. she has sung for suhasini, shruthi, anu prabhakar and almost all stars of the kannada film world. nanditha who considers chithra as her idol has rendered her voice for a telugu movie yuvaraju. "i sang with shankar mahadevan and the song was a big great. ramana gogula scored the music." the latest films that have been added to nanditha's list include jilladhikaari, h2o, pramakke sai and saagari. nanditha, a be in computer science from rvce completed her be with distinction. a software engineer in cisco systems, bangalore, nanditha has dubbed her voice for rekha, heroine of the filmchithra. nanditha is also known for her work in serials, maybe not as an actress but as a singer of repute. "i have sung title songs for many popular serials like kaveri, aasare, jeevana, vathara andbhargavi."