She began learning Harikatha when she was just six. Her paternal grandmother taught her the art as she narrated stories, writing words in tiny letters with a pencil on calendars to avoid attention from anyone at home. Gowri Rajagopal, who gave her first performance at the age of 10, when she barely knew what it was to perform in front of an audience, today has close to 1,200 programmes to her credit.
Harikatha, a traditional divine art form of storytelling with intervening music is a composite art form that blends a number of elements. Gowri still calls herself a continuous learner. “I don’t think you stop learning, there is so much to explore through Harikatha. That is why every performance is important for me,” she says.
Initially encouraged by her grandmother Gangammal Narayanan and later by her grandfather Srirangam S Narayana Iyer, who was an eminent artiste and scholar working with HMV, Gowri learnt Harikatha later from a number of other renowned artistes like C Banni Bai and Mannargudi Sambasiva Baghavathar.Apart from Tamil, Gowri also performs in Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Bengali, Hindi and Sanskrit.
With a repertoire of over a hundred topics, Gowri undertakes in-depth research for each of her programmes. Her involvement in research has resulted in four books —Innisai Thuthimalai, Arubathu Moovar Arimugam, Panniru Alwargal and Saiva Samaya Santhaana Kuravargal. She also researched the Tamil Pann Saalaram and on performing Harikatha purely in Tamil, on par with the traditional Marathi style Harikatha. The work titled Isai Peruraiyil Tamil Isai was carried out with the scholarship from Tamil Nadu Iyal Isai Nataka Mandram.
“Tailoring every programme is important for me. The subject can be the same. Rukmini Kalyanam will be the same story, but the presentation will vary. It is about how you take the audience through the same story in a different way,” she says, talking about the importance of research.
Gowri has performed at varied venues — in the middle of the Kollidam River, in Kolli hills, villages inside thick forests, city temples and the Vellore Prison. She says that the venues have brought in a wide range of audiences for her programmes. “In venues abroad like Malaysia, I have had audiences ranging from office peons to executive. There have been some bitter-sweet experiences when there haven’t been enough audiences and at times, the hall has been overcrowded. Sometimes, the best of audiences turn up in the most unlikely places. Once in a village, the organiser told me that I should include some film songs. However, I said my troupe and I would wait and watch and if no one seemed interested, we would leave immediately. But to our surprise, there was a huge crowd that was listening to the performance with rapt attention. Another memorable experience was at the prison, the superintendant later wrote to me saying that my programmed had changed the lives of the prisoners,” she says.
Gowri, who has young girls under her tutelage, continues to follow the principle of standing and performing Harikatha. She takes pride in not having to approach organisers for programmes. “I would have completed 2,000 programmes, had I gone about asking organisers for it,” says Gowri Rajagopal.