Music

A musical Saturday

Saturdays at Blue Lotus have been designated ‘training days’. There’s an attempt made every Saturday to introduce a fresh mode of delivering effective training to employees. As part of the Saturday initiative, Mr. S. Balachander was recently invited to conduct a session on Indian Classical Music. Mr. Balachander is one of those rare individuals who’ve have been able to shine in two mutually exclusive worlds; in his case, the world of music and the corporate world. A musician par excellence, Mr. Balachander is also a senior officer with a reputed healthcare company. In fact he’s successfully brought his enterprising spirit to bear on the world of notes and melody by creating a new version of the Veena. It has characteristics of both the Saraswati Veena and the Rudra Veena, yet is an entirely novel instrument.

The venue for this little in-house concert was the wide open area on the fourth floor. Given the nature of the session, we did away with chairs and spread out sheets and mattresses so everyone could sit cross-legged. A makeshift stage, slightly raised, was also created for the performer. It helped create the right ambience. Before he began, Mr. Balachander gave us a little background about the Veena, the modifications he’d carried out in it, and the raga that he was going to play for us – Raga Dhrupad. It’s a raga that’s normally not played on a traditional Veena. But with his new invention, Mr. Balachander was attempting to break new ground. We were all advised to close our eyes and just enjoy the music without attempting to read too much into it.

Then Mr. Balachander began playing. Accompanying him on the Tanpura was his wife. Together the husband-wife duo played out an ethereal piece. The Veena is a heavy instrument and one could see the strain on the performer as he attempted to capture the various highs and lows. I don’t think any of us really understood the music; its structure, its gradations, its texture; but at some level we were all touched by it.

After his performance, Mr. Balachander was presented with a bouquet on behalf of team Blue. His music definitely made an impression. But what an even bigger impression was Mr. Balachander’s humility, his soft-spoken-ness, and his passion for music which shone through very clearly and touched us all.

- Editor