Sai Shravanam
Chennai-based Sai Shravanam’s (26) gradual transition from an infant percussionist (tabla) to music composer happened quite naturally. Drawn to the tabla at the tender age of six, he was spotted by maestro Zakir Hussain four years later. Early percussion lessons from Hussain and his brother Fazal Quereshi burnished his talent and he performed on stage with leading Carnatic musicians including Aruna Sayeeram, Bombay Jayashree, Hindustani vocalist Parveen Sultana, and dancers Chitra Visweswaran and Leela Samson. Later while in New College, Chennai, Shravanam began composing music, started a musical troupe of talented students and also conducted music therapy classes for cancer patients and prisoners incarcerated in Chennai’s central jail. For his pains he won the national award for creative child prodigy from the government of India in 1998; bagged a gold medal at the South Asian Universities Music Festival in 1999 and won the ‘best university for music’ award for Madras University in 2004.
Last September, Shravanam’s first album Confluence of Elements was launched worldwide by his music company Resound India Pvt. Ltd, which has rung up sales of 30,000 units and counting. Produced by Bangalore-based Synergy Images and marketed by SaReGaMa India Ltd, this multi-lingual album features Carnatic vocalist Bombay Jayashree accompanied by Shravanam on the tabla, piano and keyboard, sarangi artist Murad Ali, flautist Navin Iyer, guitarist Keith Peters and veena artiste Bhavani Prasad.
"The album is a convergence of disparate musical traditions and features a unique music video with animation, special effects and dance. I’ve blended Hindustani, Carnatic and Western classical music and a variety of musical instruments to produce fusion music unimpeded by national boundaries," says Shravanam, a postgrad in computer applications from Madras University who worked in IIT-Madras as a sound engineer for two years before he decided to set up Resound India in January 2006. Currently, the company produces albums, soundtracks for animation, sound effects, jingles, and music for corporate commercials.
Looking back, Shravanam ascribes his swift success in the highly competitive music industry to the divine grace of his spiritual guru Sri Sathya Sai Baba who encouraged him to promote Resound India. ‘Within months of promoting the company, an international tour and several big projects came my way by the grace of Sai Baba. I’ve already started work on my next album of Meera bhajans. My ambition is to take Indian music round the globe and attract the best western musicians to jointly create a new genre of music," says Shravanam whose dream is already taking shape. Last month, he emplaned for the US to work with veteran sound engineer and Grammy awards nomination committee member William Rogers at the latter’s invitation.
Clearly the best of this talented young musician is yet to come.
Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)
Alish Pekha
Down-to-earth, energetic and enthusiastic Alish Pekha, a class XII student of Dehradun’s SelaQui World School, won honours while representing the Indian squad which bagged the winners’ trophy in the six-a-side cricket tournament sponsored by the Cricket Federation of Nepal, last August in Kathmandu (Nepal). Pekha was handpicked from among 60 contenders vying to represent the Uttarakhand Cricket Association (UCA), which was asked to recommend an all-rounder for the 16 member India squad.
To represent UCA, Pekha (17) had to compete with students from 15-20 schools across Uttarakhand. The association put the candidates through gruelling bowling, batting and fielding tests. "The trials were held in Meerut which I visited for the first time. I believe determination and concentration were important factors which helped the selectors choose me to represent the state in the Indian squad," he says.
Pekha’s selection is especially surprising because he began playing cricket only five years ago. "Now this complex and intelligent game is my passion, and I’m sure I’ll play it for a long time," says this promising cricketer who represented Jammu & Kashmir in the Ranji Trophy tournament last year (2006), though an injury prevented him from playing in this inter-state tournament this year. Nevertheless he put in a credible performance in the six-a-side tournament in Kathmandu, representing India in three out of four matches, in one of which he top-scored with 24 and bagged three wickets.
Refreshingly, Pekha also believes there’s life beyond cricket. Well up on current affairs and politics, this go-getter is usually among the first five in his class academically, and plans to qualify as a research economist. "Sixty years after independence, the economic problems of the country are largely unresolved. It’s important to do some intensive research to ascertain the real cause of this phenomenon," he says.
The chances are that he’ll succeed in his chosen vocation by exercising the same degree of application and resolve he displays on the cricket green.
Natasha Pathak (Dehradun)