To listen live to the soulful voice of the first female playback
singer in Malayalam is an incredibly rare and overwhelming
experience.  The voice of Vimala B. Varma rang clear at the
Kerala Secretariat Employees’ Association hall at an event
organised by its cultural wing in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday.
The programme marked the platinum jubilee of the release of the
first Malayalam talkie, Balan , released in 1938. She expressed
her happiness at being invited as a guest of honour for a
function to recognise her contribution to cinema. It was in the
film Nirmala that playback singing was first introduced in
Malayalam, in 1948. The movie is a landmark in the history of
Malayalam films also for the fact that it was the first to be
produced by a Malayali. (Ms. Varma sang for the film).  During
Ms. Varma’s time, playback singing and recording were very novel
exercises and priority was accorded to singers with powerful and
deep voices, music critic Ravi Menon says. “This was not because
it was popular demand, bu