KANAKAVALLI JOURNAL

Kieran Heralall, better known as KH Kanna, is a Bharatanatyam dancer based in Toronto, Canada, and Kanakavalli’s October Vignette. Despite having a full-time day job as an insurance professional, Kanna performs around the world, choreographs his own shows, and studies Carnatic vocal music.

Kanakavalli’s September Vignette, Thangam Venkatesan is more than a doctor. A reluctant physician to begin with, Thangam has now come to believe that pursuing medicine shaped her destiny. She is an international medical expert, a teacher and academician, a meditation instructor, an avid gardener, a mother, daughter, wife, and traveller, inhabiting her many roles with grace and love.

Dr. Vandana Vignette is the Co-founder of The Banyan, a pioneering organisation in the field of mental health in India that turns 25 this year. In Kanakavalli’s August Vignettes, Vandana traces the roots of her passion to make a difference, the early years of struggling against stereotype and the person-centred approach that makes The Banyan truly special.

“For me, tradition is about addition,” says Jayanthi Kumaresh, one of the country’s finest Veena artistes, who began playing the instrument at the age of three. Jayanthi, Kanakavalli's July Vignette, believes in the versatility of her art form and its relevance in a modern context, having performed at traditional Carnatic concerts and at international jazz festivals.

A practitioner of the martial art of Taekwondo, and an avid trekker who recently scaled Mount Kilimanjaro, Dr Anita is as active outside the four walls of her clinic as she is within it.  In between patients, Taekwondo sessions and family commitments, Dr Anita takes time to feature as our June Kanakavalli Vignette

Dr. Shanthi Sanjay, Kanakavalli’s May Vignette, is a gynaecologist who is passionate about guiding mothers through the journey of pregnancy and taking care of two lives. In conversation with the Kanakavalli Journal, she opens up about her firm belief in living a life of balance.