News - Views - Reviews

QUEST FOR FINER INSTINCTS

Editor's note: Reproduced below is an article about Carnatica Archival Centre's Parichaya Scheme for school kids, which was recently launched in Coimbatore. This appeared in The Hindu dated February 14, 2002, Coimbatore Edition. Read on...

Even Tagore required Yeats to commend his Gitanjali to the savants of world poetry . It is common knowledge that brains do need "background" too. Be it litterateurs or artistes, their talent gets adequate exposure only if they were to have good godfathers. No movement, however good it is, can take roots unless it gets willing patronage. It is well known that efforts that pay little in terms of monetary dividends attract very little support.

But there are some institutions still in the country that believe in values and finer instincts instead of harping on mere cramming and percentage. And it is such a quest for finer instincts that has goaded on Sri K Venkatesalu Matriculation and Higher Secondary School here to extend a helping hand to a unique movement to inculcate Carnatic music among children.

Most importantly, in these days of "rat race", when most of the parents dream of making their children "computer professionals or doctors" since admitting them in pre-KG classes, there are some who believe there is something more than Mammon. Instead of allowing their wars to become what Swift would describe as "the little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl on earth", such parents believe in making their children into "finer human beings".

And it is such parents, with the conducive ambience provided by the authorities of the institution, Mrs and Mr. Lakshmi Narayanaswamy, who led to the constitution of the Carnatica School Wing there.

Chennai-based Carnatica Archival Centre, headed by renowned musicians, S Sowmya and K N Shashikiran, is the creator of the Parichaya programme, which would be introduced through this wing.

This institution, which has already been awarded ISO 9002 certification, plans to extend this programme for children from Std I and VIII in the first phase.

The Parichaya scheme was launched here through an event called Bharatam in October last at selected institutions involving top artistes like Sowmya, Shashikiran, Palghat Sriram, Vasundhara Rajagopal and Lavanya Shankar.

This programme, according to Mr. M Ramji and Prof. A Rajagopal, who are trying to make Coimbatore culturally conscious by spreading Carnatic music among children, to create an interest among students and make them appreciate Carnatic music using "structured multimedia teaching methods".

This will be followed by a Gurukulam course which is to be directly handled by a trained teacher on the basis of a syllabus framed by the Carnatic Archival Centre.

Shashikiran points out that henceforth students need not feel that Carnatic music is the preserve of only upper class families. Parichaya will also create new rasikas for this ancient art as well as provide the much-needed outlet for relieving day-to-day stress in this fast paced era. Incidentally, Carnatica Archival Centre is affliated the Madras University for its Diploma in Music Course.

Sri Venkatesalu Matriculation School is also introducing yet another course on Indian heritage in a tie up with the Vidyapreeth of Aanaikatti Ashram "to provide children an all-round personality". Not only will the teachers train the students, the teachers would also be trained in the latest teaching methodology by M Ramji, an International Trainer.

- G Satyamurthy

Posted on February 27th, 2002