Krishnaveni, popularly known as Jikki, began her career as a child artist in 1943 and played a minor role in a Telugu movie named Panthulamma. She was slowly being noted for her musical prowess and the lilting mellifluous voice although she did not go through any orthodox classical training in music. Soon a chance came her way to sing for the successful Tamil film 'Gnanasoundari' in 1948 for which music was composed by S. V. Venkatraman. The song was a super hit. This was the turning point in her life and changed the child actress Krishnaveni into a regular playback singer,Jikki, with chances pouring from not only for Tamil and Telugu films, but also for Kannada and Malayalam films - soon her staking a claim as No.1 female singer of South India. Then Gemini's S. S. Vasan introduced her to the Hindi film world by getting her to sing for his production 'Mr.Sampat" in 1952. She sang Sinhalese songs as well at that stage since the Sinhalese films were produced in Madras during those years. She together with P. Leela reigned supreme in the South Indian film world in the early part of the 50s. Though they were in competition, they were fond of each other and behaved like two sisters and sang many songs together.

T Saichand made a moving tribute to her in this documentary and being screened to commemorate 100 years of Cinema.

Entry - Free