Lalita Venkatram
Lalita Venkatram (1909–1992), also known as Lalita Venkataram or Lalitha Venkataraman, was an Indian Carnatic singer and veena player. She is recognized as Tamil cinema’s first playback singer and the first Carnatic musician to be featured on All India Radio in Bombay.
She was born in Thiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, to Manavasi V. Ramaswamy Iyer, a public works engineer and composer, and Subbalakshmi Ramaswami. Venkatram performed across India and Ceylon, singing and accompanying herself on the veena. She gave a benefit concert in Colombo after the 1935 Quetta earthquake. She sang for an actress in A. V. Meiyappan’s Nandakumar (1938), becoming Tamil cinema’s first playback singer. She continued performing and appearing on All India Radio into the late 1940s.
After retiring from performing, she taught music in Bombay. One of her successful students was singer and composer Shankar Mahadevan. She married K. S. Venkatram and lived in Bombay, raising five children, including singer Kalyani Ramdas. Her grandchild Krishna Ramdas is a professional tabla player. Lalita Venkatram died in 1992.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 08:52 (CET).