The maestro was felicitated on her turning 60 on Sunday.The spark of musical genius was evident when she was only three. For a musician in the making the atmosphere at home was most conducive. Her father A Narayan Iyer was a Carnatic violinist. ``I must have sub-consciously imbibed my love for the violin as both my brothers were taught by my father.''

Elders in the family recalled the days when she walked into a roomful of music students with two steel ladles and sat mimicking their actions. "While others laughed my father saw a latent talent," she reminisces. Though Narayan Iyer was a Carnatic violinist, the entire Iyer household would often flock around the radio."That's how I developed a taste for Hindustani music," says Dr Rajam. "Listening to a friend's stock of 78 rpm records, to the rich voice rendering the nilamabari and the malkauns ragas I got goose-pimples. The vocalist whom I could not recognise had a lasting impression on me," she adds. "I decided then that I would learn Hindustani music and from the same man." Her wish was granted when she became a disciple of the late Pandit Omkarnath Thakur.

While learning Hindustani music from Pandit L R Kelkar in Chennai, an event changed her life. "Because of my high score I was given a double promotion in school. I went directly from Std. II to IV which created a problem. I was not allowed to appear for my matriculation exams as I was underaged." That was when the Iyers were told this wasn't so in Benares Hindu University.

So Rajam was enrolled at Benares Hindu University, with Hindustani classical music as a subject. "It was in this city that I met my guru, Omkarnath Thakur," she informs. Since Omkarnathji wasa vocalist and she a violinist, she began taking lessons by beginning to reproduce whatever he sang. "In a way the violin comes close to the human voice if one can master it," Dr Rajam points out, "but until then it was being used only as an accompanying instrument like the sitar or veena. I would keep trying till I got it right," she points out. Soon she was accompanying Omkarnathji in his concerts and in recordings. "Ab to meri beti ko suno. Mere sangeet ki dharohar usike paas hai," he would tell his audience.

Meanwhile, academically she had progressed to become a faculty member in the BHU's music department and then Head of Department and the dean of the varsity. Dr Rajam continued learning from her guru till his death. After seeking voluntary retirement she has now settled in Thane.

Being a purist, she is pained by what she calls a decline in values in society and in the field of music. "Artistes should remember that moulding the taste of the audience is their responsibility," she advises.

SaidJustice Srikrishna: "Dr Rajam's music has that ethereal quality which unites both the listener and the performer with the Supreme One."