The Hindu Business Line : Birdsong and… a kutcheri

One of the children who first sang at this Kutcheri was nominated for a prestigious young musician award. That for us is very heartening… That is the real return on investment for us.

Sound of music: There are no mikes at this Carnatic recital held at a park in Chennai. -- Picture by K.V. SRINIVASAN

D. Murali

It was the first Sunday of February 2006 and there was high excitement among a group of young children from a school on the outskirts of Chennai. The students, all aged below 15, had set out at 5 that morning on a 20-km trip to Nageswara Rao Park in downtown Mylapore. They were headed to give a Carnatic music performance (or Kutcheri) at the first ‘Sunday Kutcheri in the Park’ organised by Sundaram Finance.

A majority of them were children of farmers or labourers, who were mostly illiterate. Their school not only encouraged the children to excel at studies but also make music a part of their learning process.

Under normal circumstances it would have been near-impossible for these children to showcase their talent in a forum such as this — a full-fledged one-hour Kutcheri that ended with applause from the 100-odd music connoisseurs and morning walkers at the park.

“That really is the objective of the Sunday Kutcheri in the park – to be able to provide a platform for young children to display their musical talent,” says T.T. Srinivasaraghavan, Managing Director, Sundaram Finance Ltd, Chennai. Since then, this event has become a regular feature at the park and is held on the first Sunday of every month between 6.30 a.m. and 7.30 a.m.

Age restriction

Asked why the programme is restricted to children below 15 years, Srinivasaraghavan says, “We chose to focus on young children as we believed it would help them shed their inhibitions and give them the confidence to move up to the next level. Children as young as 6 years have performed at the Sunday Kutcheri,” he says.

No mikes

The other striking feature is the absence of mikes and speakers at the Kutcheri in the park. “The big challenge for us is the ambient noise. This is a debate that has gone on for 2½ years now. Sometimes people have told me personally that we were being very ostrich-like in forcing these children to sing without mikes and speakers, that they couldn’t be heard and that they couldn’t do justice to their art,” he says.

He, however, holds exactly the opposite view. “We have to be mindful of the fact that we operate in a public place,” he insists. “The fact is there are people who come to the park to do yoga, meditate and do a variety of things. It would be presumptuous on our part to assume that all of them are lovers of Carnatic music. Therefore, the first thing we decided was ‘No mikes, no speakers’”

That decision has thrown up another formidable challenge in the form of noise from planes flying right over the Kutcheri quadrangle. “That is something we struggle with and is a compromise we have had to make,” he concedes. Also, organising the Kutcheri on a regular basis, as well as ensuring a certain quality among the young artistes, calls for tremendous effort. “Our senior colleagues take time off to sit through the auditions, rank these children and select them to perform. It is fairly demanding in terms of people’s time and effort.”

Selection

T.T. Srinivasaraghavan, MD, Sundaram Finance Ltd

The selection is transparent and open to all. The audition committee provides feedback to all aspirants, including those who don’t get selected. In fact, some aspirants have come back for a second audition, says Srinivasaraghavan.

More than 200 children have so far participated in the Kutcheri in the park, including a couple of children from overseas. Sruti (13) and Jayashree (11) are sisters living in California who performed at the park in January this year. They had applied and auditioned through the Internet. Srinivasaraghavan credits audience interest for turning the event into a regular feature rather than a one-off event that it earlier used to be, as part of the annual Sundaram Finance Mylapore Festival. The appreciation showered by the morning walkers has gone a long way in sustaining the tempo of the park Kutcheri.

Success stories

Srinivasaraghavan underplays the success of this model. “I don’t want to hype this more than what it is. But having said that, it certainly is a platform for young children to showcase their musical talent. Children, who first performed here, have gone on to cut their own CD albums, and one of them was nominated for a prestigious young musician award. That for us is very heartening and a return on investment.”

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Birdsong and… a kutcheri