High Heels & a Shotgun

It is quite a distance from  Dances for the gods. to Rock Music. The girl in this photo seems to have traversed it pretty well. She is Susan Ann Isaac. It was her Bharathanatyam performance five years back that prompted me to write the post mentioned above.

For years Susan had been studying Bharathanatyam and Carnatic Music under Radha Srinivas, the well-known expert in Chennai. She learned Western music at the Unwind Centre, also at Chennai.

A couple of years back I started hearing talk about her forming a rock band along with some of her friends. I think that was after she bagged the ‘Best Fresh Talent’ Award in the Nxg Rock Star Competition organized by The Hindu.  

Then I learned that the band had become a reality with five girls, Susan (lead vocalist), Samriddhi, Sehr, Aditi, Gayatri and one boy, Nihal, as drummer. And it had a name, coined by Susan’s brother Thomas Isaac. Samriddhi who is also a fashion designer created the logo for the band. Here it is:

 

Their first public performance was Concert for Japan in 2011 at Chennai. It was part of the relief efforts for that country after it had suffered the devastating earthquake and Tsunami. Sandhya Ramachandran, writing in The Score Magazine says, “ever since, there’s been no turning back” for them.

Susan at the mike. Photo from the Web.

I started taking the matter seriously when someone told me recently that The Hindu had interviewed Susan. My Internet search for High Heels and a Shotgun gave pages of results including several video clippings. The Hindu interview by HARIN CHANDRA published on October 3, 2012 was also there. Its title is ‘They rock!’.

I am the proud maternal grandfather of this talented girl. She is having two problems. One is that she has just joined a professional college after completing school. She is now in Bangalore and the band is in Chennai. She goes there for performances. The last one was in October. But they are thinking of disbanding the group. Incidentally, Susan is teaching music on Saturdays at a Bangalore establishment. She got her first paycheque recently.

The other problem Susan is facing is that she is not old enough to get an ATM card. She has to wait!

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A related post:

The transformation to Bharathanatyam