Young Achievers

Abhay Rustum Sopori

"My objective is to make Kashmir a hub of cultural activities in the country and I am hopeful this will happen within five years," says Abhay Rustum Sopori (26), the ninth generation scion of India’s premier santoor music family, who is actively involved in a cultural renaissance in the strife-torn state of Jammu & Kashmir.

The son of legendary music composer and santoor maestro Pandit Bhajan Sopori and grandson of Pandit Shambu Nath Sopori, Abhay is widely credited with institutionalising music education in India’s northern-most state. For this he has been conferred several state and national awards, including the prestigious Sangeet Bhushan Award 2007 and Sangeet Natak Academy’s Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar 2007, making him the youngest musician in India to receive this honour. Recently Sopori won rave reviews for the background score and music he composed for Mahatma, a documentary film on Mahatma Gandhi, screened at the United Nations, New York on October 2, marking the first International Non-Violence Day.

"This is certainly a milestone and an occasion to cherish," says this commerce graduate from Delhi’s Ramjas College who dropped out of an MBA study programme to pursue a full-time career in music. Simultaneously Sopori’s love of field hockey (he represented Delhi state in the juniors category and was playing for several Delhi clubs until 1998) was placed on the backburner.

Since then his decision to follow the family tradition has been vindicated. Apart from composing, performing on stage and reinventing santoor music, young Sopori is also a teacher. Recently, he was invited as visiting faculty by the University of Massachusetts (USA) to conduct classes on Indian music and by the Kashmiri Overseas Association to initiate lecture-demonstrations on Indian classical music and folk music of Jammu & Kashmir at its annual convention in Chicago.

And over the past few years since he chose music as his vocation, he has recorded several best-selling albums including New Strings, Voice of Strings, Santoor Vadan, Shehjaar, Aalav, Runjhun, Kabir Bani, Jannat-e-Kashmir. Moreover he has exported his expertise worldwide performing in several countries including USA, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, and Morocco during his as yet brief career.

"All this is part of a musician’s vocation but the composition Aao Kadam Badhayain at the time of the Kashmir earthquake in 2006, which was repeatedly played on Doordarshan television for raising donations for the victims, is my favourite. It showed me how a musician can help society in different ways," says Sopori.

Having already proved his mettle and all set to catalyse a music and cultural renaissance in the troubled state of J & K, Sopori earnestly believes that such a revival will bring peace to the bloody Kashmir conflict which has plagued this "culturally rich state" for over five decades.

Autar Nehru (Delhi)

Saumay Karki

It’s a fast-reflexes and reactions game in which third world countries — Pakistan and Egypt have produced several world champions — excel. Now a new player following in the footsteps of India’s international women’s squash star Joshna Chinnappa, has surfaced in Mumbai. Saumay Karki (13) started playing the game only four years ago, and has already notched up over 30 national and international titles.

"In 2004, I signed up for the National Squash Tournament in Chennai and made it to the semi-final. That was the first time I’d participated in a national level event and reaching the last four round was a great morale booster," she recalls. Since then, there’s been no looking back for this young sportsperson. In the Junior National Sports Championship, 2006 held in Kolkata, she bagged the Girls under-19 and under-15 squash titles and at the Little Masters All India Junior Squash Tournament, 2007, Mumbai, she struck gold again.

On the international circuit too, Saumay has recorded impressive wins. She was runner-up at the Scottish Open in Edinburgh in 2006, Milo All Star Malaysian Open 2007 in Penang and the Pioneer German Open in Cologne in 2007. In the British Junior Open, held earlier this year, she made it into the last four. "The competition at the British Open was very stiff as the players are very experienced. I hope to do better next year," she says.

Saumay who turned 13 last month currently plays at the Jindal Squash Academy under the guidance of former national squash champion and well-known coach Sunil Verma. The four hours she puts into the game everyday notwithst-anding, she excels in academics as well. "I owe this to my teachers and my classmates who are very cooperative, and to my principal Neelu Lamba who grants me leave for tourna-ments," she says while adding that her parents currently sponsor her training as well as participation in international events.

Saumay looks to the future with cheerful optimism and has set her sights on winning the British Open and "several other international titles" in 2008.