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GHAZIABAD New Delhi, Friday, March 02, 2012. 4 Pages www.hindustantimes.com
A dream come true
Musically endowed Garima Vohra ■ garima.vohra@hindustantimes.com
Is how Dr Murugan Pillai explains his rise in the field of Kalarippayatu in NCR Aparna Singh Gupta ■
aparna@hindustantimes.com
Dr Murugan Pillai, 48, hardly looks his age as he leaves you speechless with a swift sword show. Meet the guru as he practises Kalarippayatu, the martial art form of Kerala. An art form he has been practising for the past 27 years and has dedicated his life to. It all started when as a youngster in Thiruvananthapuram, he was mesmerised by karate. However, as he belonged to a family of businessmen and physicians, these art forms were looked down upon as a means of living. “These combative art forms simply fascinated me. Over the years I realised that Kalarippayatu just had no parallel. More than anything else it taught selfhealing. So I just wanted to learn it,” he says. Once he made up his mind, there was no stopping him. “I told my father that I wanted to take up another career and for that I wanted to join a typing institute. I did that because there was a Kalari institute nearby. So I finished my 45minute class as early as possible to practise the Kalari art form. By doing odd jobs as a typist I paid my fee of Rs 25
barefacts
DANGEROUS PITS ON GT ROAD
Pits along GT Road can be dangerous for daily commuters. But there is no check on the telecom companies who have left such pits all over the city.
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month back the digging work started in most areas such pits are there on a small section of GT Road alone areas where the problem is really bad, Brij Vihar, Vasundhara, Lajpat Nagar, Rajendra Nagar, Indirapuram and GT Road pits in Shyam Park Extension have become accident prone
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aparna upadhayay
D I S T R I C T M A G I S T R AT E
There are no checks on the private companies that leave such pits on the roads. As per rules, before the digging work any agency has to take a no objection certificate (NOC) but there are cases where no NOC has been taken. I assure the residents that signages will be put up around the pits to inform about the danger and the agency working.
TALK TO US HT Live has two regular columns, My Colony and My Best Holiday. My Colony is about what you like about the colony you are living in, and My Best Holiday is the best holiday you had in recent times. Both go with the photograph of the contributor. Anybody interested in contributing for the same can write to: ■
aparna@hindustantimes.com
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Presently Dr Murugan Pillai and his students are busy preparing for their performance at the ongoing book fair. WASEEM GASHROO / HT PHOTO
every month,” says Pillai. After eight years of practice, the turning point came when he was selected by his institute to perform at the Taj Mahal. The show was organised by the Uttar Pradesh tourism department. “My performances at the Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal had the audience spell bound. At that time, as a 21-year-old I realised that the sword and spear show and the raw energy of a stick fight were unparalleled. The sheer energy this art form infused even among the viewers was the only thing that gave me happiness,” he adds. But as luck would have it, Pillai shifted to Delhi in 1993 because of family pressure to
take up a job. Living on rent in Mayur Vihar phase 3, he decided to earn some money by teaching Kalari to some eager children. “I was inspired as the number of children grew once I started classes in the local parks. Finally, I opened an institute in the area to teach Kalari,” he says. Pillai had got his first formal show at the Travancore House. Today he conducts workshops all over India and abroad. He also has regular presentations in schools in Delhi, Faridabad, Noida and Ghaziabad. The number of his students has also grown from six to 70. Since 1997, along with his stu-
dents, Pillai has been presenting the martial arts shows for India Trade Promotion Organisation. His institute Nithya Chaithanya Kalari is empanelled with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and affiliated to Nehru Yuva Kendra (under the Union Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports) and is also recognised by the Sahitya Kala Parishad and Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage. “It has been a dream come true for me. I love my work and I am very happy that I believed in it when no one else did,” he says as he gears up for his performance at the ongoing book fair.
While growing up in Dah, a small town near Pathankot, Sunanda Sharma would spend her time listening to stories of music maestros and places like Kashi and Haridwar from her grandparents. “My grandparents would recite stories while my father, Pandit Sudarshan Sharma, who used to play the violin and was my first guru, would ask me to accompany him to various concerts being organised in Pathankot,” recalls Sharma, a resident of Tara Apartments, south Delhi. The turning point came in 1990 when she was doing her masters in music from Punjab University. “Since I had won a gold in vocals that year, the university had sent me to the Hariballabh Sangeet Sammelan in Jalandhar,” says Sharma. She adds, “Throughout my journey to Jalandhar, I was praying to the almighty to give me a guru as renowned musicians from all over the country had come to perform there.” Her prayers did come true when she was asked to perform with Vidushi Girija Devi who had listened to her singing a day before. “That was my first performance with Girija Devi and I accompanied her on the tanpu-
SUNANDA SHARMA WAS INTRODUCED TO THE WORLD OF MUSIC BY HER VIOLINIST FATHER AT A VERY EARLY AGE. ra. After the performance, she walked up to my father and told him that she wants to take me to Varanasi to train me,” says Sharma. She trained under Girija Devi, whom she fondly calls Appaji, for nine years and learnt the basics of the Benaras Gharana. She was not allowed to perform anywhere for the first three years. The first time Sharma was allowed to perform was in the Tansen Music Festival at Gwalior. Sharma strongly believes that everything happens for a reason. “May be I got involved in music because I had to learn from maestros and also find my husband through music,” chuckles Sharma. Her husband, Jaishankar is a trained doctor and also a tabla player. “We met during a Spic-Macay tour three years back and gave one performance together,” says Sharma. Their daughter Kidara, who is named after a raag, is an audience at home when Sharma is doing riyaaz.
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Sharma says she cannot leave Delhi because of her music. SUNIL SAXENA / HT PHOTO