I am deeply shocked by the passing away of Mrs. Geetha Bennett.
In the initial stages of Chicago Tyagaraja Utsavam, especially in the early eighties, we were hard pressed to find any touring professional musician from India whose touring time would also overlap with our festival time. With some new immigrants, we were able to successfully incorporate “Homage to Tyagaraja” sessions with the help of the local music teachers, and their few budding students. We wanted a finale program for our one-day annual festival (Utsavam). In those days it was a much tougher proposition to find a decent mridangist even if we could locate a decent vocalist or instrumentalist. We had to also comb the country to find a suitable mridangam at a matching shruti. On the advice of Dr C.N. Krishnaswamy, I contacted Mrs Geetha Bennett. Fortunately, we were also blessed with Dr. Frank Bennett, her husband, as her mridangist.
We (CTU) could not afford beyond their flight charges from California and a token honorarium. I don’t remember the token honorarium we gave . She had one request. Depending on the whims and fancies of the airline, they were charged $56 to check in her Veena as a hand luggage. Her concert went on very well and she thanked us for this unique opportunity. After reaching California, she sent a separate thanking letter and enclosed a check for $56, saying that she was lucky and the airline did not charge additionally. That single letter is enough for any one of us as to know about her high values and her standing among professional musicians.
In my school days, I used to pester my father to find a music teacher for me. Being a Sanskrit Pundit with pittance salary (perhaps the lowest salary among all teachers in the school where he was teaching), he came to know that Geetha Bennett’s father, Dr. S. Ramanathan had just moved from deep south to GT Madras area with a large family. He was himself struggling to make a living by giving veena and vocal music lessons to aspiring students. He was willing to give me free lessons if only I could possess a Shruti box on my own. It was out of reach for us and I could not avail of this free offer. I mentioned this in an interview by the editors of the Tamil magazine Tendral (published from California). Geetha Bennett called me as soon as she read this. I told her that I have read many of the short stories she had written for Ananda Vigadan, Kumudam etc. She used to contribute regularly to many of these popular magazines often centered on Tamil immigrants and their many cultural conflicts in USA.
At our request, she came to perform again at our annual festival on 26 May, 1991.
On behalf of CTU, I express my sincere condolences to her husband Dr Frank Bennett and other family members.
TES Raghavan
Chairman