Arts as a Lifestyle - My experience at Naada Bindu Festival

This year's Naada Bindu Festival (NBF) was from 12th to 14th February (Friday to Sunday).  It's objective is to make people experience Arts as a Lifestyle.   It is a residential arts retreat.  Attendees stay at the Chinmaya Vibhooti [a sprawling 65 acre campus], which is the vision centre of Chinmaya Mission.  Chinmaya Naada Bindu (CNB) is a Gurukul for Performing Arts.  Less than couple of years back, I got to know about CNB and have attended three, week-long Bansuri workshops there, that has influenced me a lot in my musical journey.  Music is something one has to practice every day.  Somehow I am unable to get the calmness in mind to do focussed practice.  Naada Bindu Festival makes one soak in music all day during the fest, and I believe, that is going to inspire me as a booster in my musical journey.

I had been to last year's Naada Bindu Festival.  So I had an idea of what it is going to be.  Unfortunately, I had to go alone this time; could not take any near and dear ones, because of their preoccupations and committments.  It was one of the most rewarding experience, musically and spiritually.  Kind of detox.

The festival had music of all sorts, but predominantly hindustani and carnatic classical varieties.  Till 18 years back, when I was in Chennai, I could roam around different sabhas during December-January season and attend music concerts all day.  Then last 10+ years I was going for the concerts at Sangit Mahabharati, Juhu.  But the Naada Bindu Festival with theme "Arts as Lifestyle" is very different. and unique.   It's a complete musical and spiritual experience; staying in the Ashram campus, having simple sattvic food, meeting people from different parts of the world with interest in music and spirituality etc. etc... 

Day One.. 

The festival started at 4 in the evening with a tabla presentation, by 10 students from local village school, who are being taught music as part of Chinmaya Social Responsibility (CSR).  Could see pride in each one of those boys, when they were playing tabla, with dignitaries on the dias.   Hats off to CNB for taking music to the rural India and nurturing the aspirations of under-privileged.   A festival souvenir was released in the inaugural session that contains details of programme, about participating artists and quite a few classic articles on different aspects of art and spirituality.   An album "Antarnaad" created by my Bansuri guru and Director of Chinmaya Naada Bindu Shri Himanshu Nanda was also released in the function.  

The first formal session of the fest was a discourse by Swami Tejomayananda, global head of Chinmaya Mission.  I was fortunate enough to have experienced three 'Geeta Jnana Yanjnaas' of Swami Chinmayananda, about 40+years back in Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam.  Understanding the essence of Geeta and Upanishads from Swami Chinmayananda has immensely influenced me and my belief and value systems.  Always loved listening to Vendantic interpretations of our epics, which guides us to live a life of contentment and happiness.  Swami Tejomayananda's interpretation of 'Raama Hare Stotram' touched many aspects of life.

This was followed by an action packed dance drama “Sundara Kaandam”, by Anita Guha's troupe from Chennai.  It was a ballet presentation of Sundarakaandam chapter of Ramayana.  Exceptional choreography with attention to details such as costumes, lighting and characterisation made it very touching.  I had opportunities to see many dance dramas in different genres of Indian dance such as Bharatnatyam, Kathakali, Mohiniyattam, Kuchipudi etc.  This was very different, innovative and had a contemporary style of presentation.   Difficult to identify a highlight, as each and every second can be highlighted, as it was precise and perfect.  

Post dinner was an awesome Hindustani classical concert by renowned maestros Pundits Rajan Mishra and Sajan Mishra from Benaras.  I was hearing them live for 3rd time.  Each time felt better.   It is two voices and one soul.  The main raag they performed was Bhupaali (Mohanam in carnatic style); that followed with a composition in raag Durga and then in Bhairavi.  All these 3 raags are my favourites.  The Benaras style of presentation characterises refreshing breeze from the Himachal mountains and the soft waves of the Ganga river in Benaras converge to an enchanting spell of spirituality that spreads aroma for all to enjoy.   Able accompaniments - Dr. Arwind Thatte on harmonium and Avinash Patil on tabla - made the whole prayerful musical encounter a very memorable one.

Raag bhairavi was ringing in ears all the way my walk back to the room, and felt calmness in mind.   The day was fulfilling and refreshing. 

Day Two...

My day 2 started with a walk up the hill at 6 in the morning to the "Pranav Ganesh Mandir" in the campus and spend about half hour meditating in that calm ambience..   

The programme of the day 2 started at 7 am with continuation of previous day's discourse by Swami Tejomayananda.  What a positive start for the day.

Post breakfast [Poha], it was a session on world music by renowned violin maestro Smt Kala Ramnath.  It was a magical performance with her 'Singing Violin' with matching accompaniments from Abhijit Banerjee on tabla, Somnath Roy on Ghatam and Goutam Shome on keyboard.  Somnath Roy played quite a few percussion instruments.  The performance was named Yashila, that brought Mexican, European, West-Asian music flavours in addition to both south and north Indian classical music.  Overall a very different kind of musical performance, with inter-spreading percussion Jugalbandis, left a deep feel of world music for the audience.  

Can music be used to enhance our inherent creativity and productivity? Can music help us manage our stress levels? Can music help us enhance our emotional quotient and inter-personal skills? The answer is "Yes", and we got a sneak preview of how this can be done in an interactive session that followed Kala Ramnath's performance.  This interactive session MQ2HQ [Musical Quotient To Happiness Quotient] was conceptualized by my Bansuri guru Shri Himanshu nanda.  Some of the learnings from the session are: Enhance focus and power of concentration through music meditation; Tricks to enhance listening skills etc.  Now I am desperately looking forward to attend a full day MQ2HQ workshop. Not sure when I will be able to.  At the end of the session, I took a resolution to have a "Music bath" every day in addition to the usual water bath.

Had a sumptuous ashram meal and a bit of rest till 3 pm.  Most people were roaming around in the 65 acre campus; and many visited the Chinmaya Jeevan Darshan, an outstanding tribute and monument that showcases the teachings, life, vision and work of Swami Chinmayananda, through an exquisite amalgamation of paintings, sculptures, photographs, quotations and multi-media.   As I have visited it couple of times, I chose to spend the afternoon practicing my Bansuri lessons in room.  The high energy ambience of Chinmaya Vibhooti provides the right environment for practicing music.  Couple of pics of the campus shown below.

The evening started with an electrifying traditional carnatic music concert by Priya Sisters [Haripriya & Shanmukhapriya] from Hyderabad.  I am hearing them live after long 17 years.  Did’t know how the one and half hours flew.  The best start I always look forward to in a carnatic music concert is "Vathapiganapathim".  I think, they knew my mind, and they started exactly with this kirtan in Hamsadhwani raagam.  The next best I could have asked is one of my favourite raaga as the main raaga of the concert.  Yes, that too was in my favour.  It was "Thodi" raagam.  My day was made with these two choices by the two Hyderabad sisters.  These days I get very less opportunities to attend live carnatic music concerts by top artists.  Thank you CNB for the right choice of artists for the festival.  Yes, worthy sisters after the legendary Radha-Jayalakshmi and Saroja-Lalitha.  At the end of the concert, Swami Advaitananda said "It was karnapirya (feast to the ears) and they could do it as they are 'Eswarapriya' (loved by god)". 

After the powerful carnatic music concert, it was a thematic solo Bharatnatyam by a girl who was born and brought up in the US, but decided to move to India to pursue her passion in Bharatnatyam.  Liked how people are finding their purpose in life and enjoying their life.  Mythili Prakash took the audience to a very different level with her traditional classical Bharatnatyam, on theme 'Saranagathi' meaning 'surrender'.  Powerful vocal support by her brother Aditya enhanced the overall experience for the audience.  It was awesome to watch the brother-sister performance, brother giving vocal support to sister's classic dance.  35 minutes long Varnam in raaga 'Naattakkurinchi' was a feast to the body, mind and intellect. Me, as a person who lived in a classical dance environment right from my childhood, I could enjoy each bit of the performance.  The Marathi bhajan 'Rusli Radha Rusla Madhav' and the powerful Sufi piece 'Allahu' stood out.  The live accompaniments were so good that, the audience got into a frenzy for the last item, which saw an unbelievable rendition by Mahesh Swamy, of the Allahu song. 

It was dinner time after the dance performance, which was followed by garba night.. Most attendees came in colourful traditional cloths and danced out, in dandiya / garba style. Being in ta place surrounded by sahyadri hills all around, it was quite cold, but the garba dance generated so much heat that we didn’t feel the cold. 

Day Three..

The third day started with visits to the two temples within the campus at 7.  Quiet ambience.  The Ganesh Mandir has a meditation room, and I spent some time there meditating in that high-energy ambience.  People from different walks of life were present, and I could see quite a few of them meditating there.

Being Valentines day, the first performance started with a powerful vocal concert on theme “Prema Geetham - Facets of Love” by Smt Pramodini Rao, one of the directors of Chinmaya Naada Bindu.  The theme was on love -  love towards children, love towards lover, love towards parents, love towards guru and love towards the Lord.   She unravelled the facets of love through ghazals, bhajans, bhava geethams,  thumries etc.  Also in many diff languages from kannada to hindi to marathi and Punjabi.  I personally know Pramodiniji and did not have opportunity to hear her full performance.   Vijay Shivane's support on Harmonium, Nilesh Ranadive's on Tabla and Abhijeet Bhosale's support on percussion made the performance a stunning one.  The audience were left spellbound.  My respect towards Pramodiniji went up by many notches after experiencing this concert.  It was not traditional classical music concert, but very different kind.  Everyone enjoyed.

The next was another stellar art talk by Ramaa Bharadvaj, Director of Dance at Chinmaya Naada Bindu.  The topic being “Finger Tales - Story Telling in Dance”.  As a person lived in indian classical dance environment in my childhood and attending many many classical dance performances, this 90 minute session was a special treat to my mind.  Ramaaji’s confident and powerful lecture-demonstration on how hands and fingers are used to narrate stories was awesome with lots of new learning for me. She presented a Bharatnatyam piece choreographed on one of all time great Ludwig Van Beethoven's composition.  She narrated a part of Ramayana on it.  The fusion was magical.  The other highlight was presentation of the famous composition "Krishna Ni Begane Baro" from three different perspectives, viz. that of mother, that of lover and that of devotee.  For each repetition of the lyric, the dancer changes to a different role for the same lyric.  It was awesome. 

As I had to reach home early, I missed the last session, Sitar performance by Ustaad Shahid Parvez. Being a sitar student and sitar teacher to my daughter, I wanted to have a live experience of Ustaad Shahid Parvez's performance.  Felt very sad that I missed it.  

One of the interesting aspect of the festival was creating paintings live when concerts are on, based on the inspiration and mood that the painter gets based on the music performance.  My dear friend Prof Sireesh Kathale creates aesthetically superior paintings for each performance and the paintings are autographed by the artists at the end of the performance.  The paintings are auctioned at the end of the festival.  Last year Sireeshji has donated all the money received from auction to the Chinmaya Social Responsibility (CSR) activities of CNB.

Being at “Chinmaya Vibhuti” itself is an “Anubhuti” for me.  Staying there for 3 days and that too for such an intensive musical and spiritual retreat is heavenly.  Met quite a few people with similar interests.  During one of the lunch / dinner time, a couple (65+ years) were sitting on the same table. The lady started talking to me in Malayalam (as I was wearing mundu), though she did’t look Malayali.  She said, she is from Alapuzha, but a Gujju, and surname is Thakkar.   Aha! My daughter in law is also a Gujju Thakkar.  Met an anaesthetist from Australia with family, who came to attend the fest.  Had long conversation with him on topics of mutual interest.  Like this many more..

So, three days of spiritual and musical retreat has really helped me to get better clarity of my purpose in life.   It's music, that's what I enjoy doing most.  Listening to good music and playing the instruments that I have.  Also, shaping up my daughter through music.  Music has immensely worked as a therapy for her in her quest to come out of the intellectual disability she was born with.  I think, music works as therapy for all of us.  So far I had only a very limited understanding of that.  At the MQ2HQ workshop at the festival, I could get a glimpse of what all ways music can help each one of us to lead happier lives.  

Finally what matters is happiness... 

Credits for photos:  Most of the pictures were taken by the official CNB team and reproduced here with permission.