After a year-long journey, a gurukul aspires to become a global stage

“We want to create great musicians and great human beings too,” says Himanshu Nanda, director for music at the Chinmaya Naada Bindu. It’s an ideology that this gurukul for Indian performing arts believes and advocates to its students. A project of the Chinmaya Mission, the gurukul will complete its first

anniversary today. As part of the celebrations, they are organising the ‘Naada Bindu Festival for the Arts’, at the gurukul from September 18 to 21. The festival will see performances by Dr Ashwini Bhide-Deshpande (vocals), Kala Ramnath (violin), Surupa Sen and Bijayini Satpathy (Nrityagram) and Ramaa Bharadvaj (bharatnatyam); besides workshops and discourses. 

Started in 2009 last year, the gurukul was opened with the
objective of creating a dedicated institution for traditional Indian performing arts, including music and dance. “It’s a different medium of propagating the Vedanta philosophy, the journey towards self through fine arts,” adds Nanda, a disciple of Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia and the first person to hold a flute workshop at the new gurukul.

The gurukul plans on opening its doors to students in 2013,
giving them four years to focus on creating awareness and conducting workshops and festivals. The residential workshops — three-day to weekly ones, are held every month, and cater to lovers of different music genres. The most recent one was Monsoon Masti, an introductory workshop on monsoon ragas.

Then there are those conducted by celebrated names like Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, which are open to musicians with experience. “We want to make this a global centre for the performing arts where respected artistes from different countries can perform,” says Nanda.

At present, the centre has an auditorium that can seat 1,000 people, state-of-the-art classrooms for music and dance, recording studios, and residential rooms, all spread over 70 acres. A unique feature of the gurukul is the ‘chilla’ room. “Chilla is a vow people take to isolate themselves from the rest of the world. Usually, these people confine themselves to a room for 40 days and rigorously practice their art without any distraction,” says Nanda.

As part of future plans, the gurukul intends to start its own event management company to promote its students. “We had conducted a survey where we found that most people do not want to pursue classical music since they do not have a proper platform to showcase it. We want to ensure that students who come here can focus on learning their art without worrying about the future,” says Nanda. The infrastructure is in place and the gurukul is confident that by 2013, they will have their faculty in place, so that they can start admissions for full-time residential classes.

The Chinmaya Naada Bindu was born five years ago of a vision of the directors of the music group of the Chinmaya Mission (the Chinmaya Swaranjali). Originally meant to be in Mumbai, it was Swami Tejomayananda, the global head of the Chinmaya Mission, who suggested shifting it to a quieter place. “He wanted the gurukul to be in a place where people could feel they were performing in heaven,” says Nanda. 

The cost for the event is Rs3,000 inclusive of a three-nights stay, meals and transport. Call 96898 89153 or email cnb@chinmayamission.com.