Uma - A Pole Star!
With a very heavy heart, I am sharing the very painful news that my loving wife, Smt. Uma, breathed her last on 21st January 2026 - Wednesday at 7.16 a.m with all her near and dear ones being with her during her final moments. On 9th Jan 2026, our dearest Uma, suffered a brain haemorrhage. Being resilience personified as we know her she put up a brave effort...
God had other plans for Uma and left us all poorer without her ...
Uma, as many of you know, was a multifaceted personality, with a never ending passion for excellence in everything that she touched. She graduated from Valliammal with a gold medal and completed her MSc from IIT Madras. Subsequently she had cleared CSIR UGC NET and went on to finish her PhD in Bio Inorganic chemistry at Central Leather Research Institute, Chennai. She did her PhD while she was working at Presidency and has five international publications in reputed journals with high impact factor, which is still being cited in several papers.
After finishing her post graduation she started working in an R&D firm - Tetrahedron, developing formulations for dyes using tannic acid extracted from plant material. She also worked in Sika Qualcrete as a technical sales manager before taking up her calling, which was teaching, in 1998.
Having a flair and passion for it, she started her teaching career from Government College for Women at Wallajahpet in 1998 and then moved on to the prestigious Presidency College, Chennai, in the year 2000. During her stint at Presidency she played an instrumental role in encouraging and helping train various students' teams that brought accolades to the college and department in many intercollegiate competitions. She served in Presidency College Madras for close to 23 years (2000- 2023). She prided in celebrating the successes of her scores of students who were inspired by her to take up research, teaching and professional roles.
Professor Uma, on her transfer to Arignar Anna Arts College Cheyyar, in March 2023, took up the most challenging responsibility as Internal Quality Assurance Cell Coordinator for NAAC Accreditation for the college. She worked relentlessly, involving the college team of faculty colleagues, staff and students and successfully got the due accreditation of NAAC B+ certification. At the time of her untimely demise, she was the HOD, Chemistry department and also the Vice Principal of the College. In her illustrious teaching career of over 27 years, she always considered her biggest success as inspiring critical thinking and problem solving amongst the thousands of students she guided.
While contributing so much on a massive scale and intensely on the professional side, she did not give up her breath, that is music. During her formative years, she lived in Chennai, Delhi and Bhopal and learnt music from gurus in the respective cities. However, when she was under the tutelage of Late Shri KS Vaidyanathan, during her PG days in Chennai, she started honing her music skills. After the demise of Vaidyanathan Sir, Uma was blessed to learn from Smt Lalitha Sivakumar (DK Pattamal’s daughter in law). Lalitha Maami’s schooling helped Uma improve her repertoire. She was continuing her music learning after her college days along with her professional and personal responsibilities, such was her passion to learn more and improve continuously.
Having trained under reputed musical gurus, she decided to give back, to carry forward, and to share, all that she learnt and continued to learn. Ragasurabhi - the website / YouTube channel was born - as the way to realize her vision - to help people understand and make carnatic music accessible to everyone.
Since August 2009, when she started Ragasurabhi, she ran it for 856 weeks without a single break. Rain or shine she would ensure that weekly updates were done. She ensured that Ragasurabhi became “the go-to site”, for people to learn and appreciate carnatic music. In 2014, Ragasurabhi was launched in YouTube as well. The Ragasurabhi YouTube family has swelled to well over 61.4K subscribers and continues to grow.
Uma was an extremely creative person. Whether coming up with unique ways to quiz her Ragasurabhi family or break down chemistry concepts through songs, she was one who kept pushing boundaries. She wrote, composed and arranged several collaboration projects with several like minded artists, across the globe. A person with a never ending appetite for excellence, she put her heart and soul in every collaborative project, every song she sang, every piece she composed and every commitment she undertook.
She had the Midas touch. All that she ventured upon was done with precision and artistic skills, resulting with the best of outcomes - teaching, guiding, mentoring, writing, cooking, rangoli and the list is big. A polyglot as well, she was adept in 7 languages including Dutch and French, and composed many songs in all those languages. Her skills and achievements are beyond anyone's imagination.
Personally for me, it leaves me with a huge vacuum, but I am sure that she will guide me, our family, her friends, her students, and the rest of the Ragasurabhi team.
Uma - The Guiding Star who was with us on earth has now become a Pole Star in the skies. She leaves a great legacy in music, in education and in the thousands of people that she's inspired over the years - to be kind, loving, affectionate to one another, and to never stop trying to become better. Uma showed everyone that success follows one who was relentless, passionate and dedicated to a cause.
Uma always wanted Ragasurabhi to cross 1000 weeks, with the support of all our likeminded collaborators we will cross this milestone for sure, she has taught us enough on how to plan, organize and achieve this. We would continue to look forward to your support in carrying her legacy forward!!!
Thank you and best regards
Ramasubramaniam G (Uma Ram’s husband)
This week's update features the following::
