MAKING MUSIC

Hindustan Times
Thursday, May 20, 2004.

Young People Can Save Classical Music

EVEN THE ring tone on his cell phone plays a Hindustani classical music tune. Which is a strong enough indication that the soft-spoken, unassuming Kaushik Bhattacharjee fairly lives and breathes classical music. That he has not really captured the limelight is due at least as much to his shyness as to the competition that characterises the arts today. 

A student of ITC SRA from 1987-2001, the 32 year old vocalist is currently as associated with three music schools, one of them set up by his father – himself a noted dhrupad singer – at his home in 1970. Indeed, Kaushik’s family abounds in classical vocalists, including his great-grandfather ‘Premik Maharaj’.

Despite the low profile that he maintains, however, Kaushik already has several milestones to his credit. Chief among them is a tour of France, during which he became, he reckons, “only the second Indian performer after Nikhil Banerjee” to earn a live spot on French radio, which broadcast his performance and interview. A solo CD of his France tour is already in the market. 

And yet, fame is taking its time to come to him. “Everything is a struggle these days,” smiles Kaushik. “And it doesn’t help that there is no proper channel for Indian classical music”. So he involves himself heavily in fusion music to “help create an ear” for the form. “Besides, fusion is not a new phenomenon in Indian music. It has always been a parallel form of expression,” Kaushik adds.

Thus he has travelled in India and abroad performing alongside a cello and saxophone on the one hand and Carnatic vocalists on the other. “ The response to the new kinds of fusion,” he says, “has been excellent.” In between, he has also done a unique piano-vocal jugalbandi live with V Balsara, which performance may perhaps be released as a CD.

He has also done much as a composer, with works as diverse as bhajans and children’s rhymes (“with a classical base”) to his credit. “The aim is to involve as many young people as possible. That is the only way to save music.”