A trained classical dancer with the Nritya Kalanithi award for Bharatanatyam in 1990, Kala, a school drop out, entered the film industry through the influence of her brother-in-law, the choreographer Raghuram.
She has since worked in over 4000 songs in various languages including Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada, Oriya, Bengali, English, Italian and Japanese.
She was handed the opportunity to choreograph the Miss World 1996 Beauty Pageant held at Bangalore for which she received a special award of excellence.
Kala's merit is in popularising a peculiar dance form, cobbled together with borrowings from classical, Indian folk, bhangra and western steps.
She has also introduced another niece Keerthi, daughter of Jayanthi Master and wife of actor Shanthanu Bhagyaraj, as an anchor in her dance reality show Manada Mayilada.
The pair got divorced in 1999, and soon after Kala and Brindha controversially made derogatory comments about Sneha's dancing ability to a magazine.