For the love of music

Aranya Kumar is trying to popularise Hindustani classical music in rural areas.

Bailhongal in the Belgaum district in north Karnataka is what they call a one horse town. With a population of less than 50,000 (according to the 2001 census), this predominantly agricultural and commercial town does not have much happening in the sphere of arts and culture. However, one man is trying to change that.

Aranya Kumar set up Bhairavi Sangeet Vidyalaya in 2006 in order to introduce Indian classical music to rural areas and to train rural talent. “We give concerts so that people in the villages develop respect for music and musicians,” says Kumar.

It hasn’t been easy. The countryside around Bailhongal doesn’t have a tradition of Hindustani classical music like, say, Dharwad, a little to the south. More prevalent is folk music and devotional songs, locally called bhakti sangeet. “Getting villagers to attend a concert is no easy job,” admits Kumar. But Kumar has stuck to his guns, using devotional music set to ragas to create an appreciation for classical music.

Kumar and his friends have also formed a troupe called Bhairavi Vadya Vrinda which plays fusion music, based largely on classical music. The funds raised from these concerts are used to develop the school.

Bhairavi Sangeet Vidyalaya is unique in that it teaches all kinds of Hindustani instrumental and vocal music. Another thing special about the school is that it allows students (at least those who want to) to take their musical instruments home with them in order to practice.

The school is run by Nada Yoga Society, a part of Nada Yoga Ashram set up by Kumar’s mother, Saraswati Munenni, originally an Italian called Cecelia Riva. A trained Western classical musician, Riva has been living in the remote Gajaminahal village in Bailhongal taluka for 30 years pursuing Indian spiritual ideas and social work.

Indeed, Riva comes from a family of artists and musicians in Italy. Her father was a violinist and her sister, Tiziana Repepi, a writer who had been researching the Vachanas, a form of Kannada poetry that emerged in the 12th century CE. The latter, who lives in Torino, Italy, has been helping Kumar by arranging performances at the Conservatorio di Vicenza, the music university in Turin, and chipping in with the Rs 800 a month he pays his mother as rent for a two-room building in which Sangeet Vidyalaya is housed.

Kumar himself is a promising young sitar player who could play the harmonium, tabla, flute and esraj by the time he was six. He has learnt the sitar from Ustad Hameed Khan of the Indore beenkar gharana, following it up with taalim under Sudhir Phadke, a disciple of Annapurna Devi, a leading exponent of the Senia Maihar gharana.

Kumar is now training under Sandhya Apte (another student of Annapurna Devi) and Pandit Rajeev Taranath, a sarod maestro of the Maihar gharana. In 2004, he was given a national award from the ministry of sports and youth affairs, and in 2003, he won a gold medal from the governor of Karnataka.

He is currently working on his doctoral thesis in music, and is a part-time lecturer at Dharwad University.

Kumar could have had a thriving career doing concerts in the metros, but he preferred to go back to his village, and set up a school for classical music for rural children. Many jeered at him for doing so and it wasn’t easy finding the money to keep the school going, but Kumar has persevered.

Bhairavi Sangeet Vidyalaya is partially self-financing, charging students a monthly fee of Rs 50. But there are many students who learn for free. Classes are held only on weekends, so that they don’t clash with school and tuitions and students are encouraged to take their instruments home till the next class.

“In 2008, my mother’s well-wishers and our family founded Nada Yoga Society that now runs the school. Donors and visitors help our NGO with its various projects. We are looking for donors of musical instruments for the children and to pay salaries to assistants,” says Kumar.