By Sukant Deepak

February 24, 2023 (IANSlife) “Sadly, studying music or arts for a lifetime is not considered important enough. Success means winning a talent show and not otherwise. I fail to understand how one puts artistic urges in these parameters?” questions Padma Shri awardee Shubha, adding parents and guardians and schools need to expose children to all kinds of music and arts, and the splendid diversity this country offers in it.

The singer, along with co-artistes Aneesh Pradhan (Tabla) and Sudhir Nayak (Harmonium) was recently in Chandigarh to perform ‘Rang Hori’ on the invitation of ‘Elsewhere’, conceived in the memory of Sangeet Natak Akademi award-winning playwright and author Swadesh Deepak, added, “I was a member of the Central Advisory Board of Education constituted by the Government of India, a focus group discussing the need for introducing an arts education program in mainstream school education during the National Curriculum Framework 2005. It was eons ago, and our recommendations were accepted but we are yet to see them applied. Till we do not give the same importance to music and the arts as we do to maths and science, or attach a tangible outcome to its study, children will never understand the value it adds to growth and development.”

Talking about the ‘Rang Hori’, the singer and musicologist, who was performing in Chandigarh after more than a decade stressed that when it comes to basant and holi, there is an inexhaustible wealth of compositions to be presented. “In our tradition, so much has been written on and inspired by the seasons. I am fortunate enough to continue to be immersed in the khayal and thumri dadra forms for the last 40 years, to learn and perform them to my best.” 

Born into a musically dedicated family, Shubha has been trained by some of the finest musicians and musicologists in India including eminent scholar-musician-composer Pandit Ramashreya Jha “Ramrang”, Pandit Vinaya Chandra Maudgalya and Pandit Vasant Thakar. She later learnt stylistic techniques from well-known maestros Pandit Jitendra Abhisheki and Pandit Kumar Gandharva. She also received training in thumri from Naina Devi.

In her quest to keep the arts alive, Shubha takes on students, and moulds them in her own ‘customised version’ of the Guru shishya parampara. “I have had the good fortune of having extremely generous and brilliant gurus who taught me everything. I try to follow their example, and in the process have formed my own way of teaching and learning from it.” 

The world has changed post pandemic, digitalisation has taken over, technology calls the shots and artists have switched to the online mode. But for Shubha, the Pandemic and its lockdown were traumatic. “An artist needs an audience, and suddenly you are in forced captivity, with no source of income. It was devastating, the artists suffered because the support to the arts was meager. There was no attempt by any regulating authority to think or do something for the artist. A web camera that cost say Rs 3000, suddenly shot up to Rs 30,000 during the pandemic. There was no price regulation or funding. Senior artists could not even find a bed in the hospital, and so many left music and took up jobs. We were told to cheer people with our music, but no one thought about us,” rues Shubha. 

Along with her husband and tabla maestro, Aneesh Pradhan, Sameera Iyengar, Rahul Vohra, Mona Irani, and Arundhati Ghosh established ADAA (Assistance for Disaster Affected Artists) in 2020, and through collaboration with ten organisation in ten states, raised funds and financial supported 137 families of artists over six months. 

While technology, she feels has made it possible for music to be shared, streamed, and be accessible, it’s the traditional arts and music, the handmade musical instruments, the singers and families carrying on these traditions who continue to struggle. “There is no tax relief, or funding or any financial help or even an effort to conserve or preserve these art forms,” says Shubha, consistent and constant in her endeavor to reach out and help, and raise the issues. 

The co-founders of Elsewhere (Sukant Deepak and Nagina Bains) said that while the organisation’s head office is in Chandigarh, it will be organizing multi-arts festivals with top artists of different genres across the country and offer art education programmes. In November, Elsewhere had invited Mahmood Farooqui’s ‘Dastan-e-Karn Mahabharat’ at Chandigarh’s Rock Garden. They stressed that while the organisation is in the memory of Swadesh Deepak, its purpose is not to promote his work.

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