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Meena Narayan has the distinction of being the first woman sound engineer in India. Her husband started his career as a film distributor and set up a Sound Studio in Chetpet in 1934. Noted sound engineer Poddar used to work for the studio and Meena was asked to assist him.
She worked with Poddar for the film ‘ Srinivas Kalyanam’ which was released in Crown the Broadway theatres. When Poddar quit his job, Meena had picked up every aspect of sound engineering.and she worked independently as the sound engineer for the film ‘Viswamitra’. She went on to work for many more films till the death of her husband in 1936. She has a daughter Kalavathi who is an oncologist and a son Srinivasan who has a passion for trains and tracks. Meena died of heart attack in 1954 during an excursion to Kodaikanal. Her relative named Jayanthi Ramesh said that plans are on to publish a book on Meena and her family members.
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