It is one of those rare days in Chennai when the sun is sparring with dark clouds. First it is downcast, then the sun suddenly re-emerges, getting in the eye. It seems like a sign though, a precursor to a meeting with the Sunshine Orchestra.
The all-strings dectet is still basking in the afterglow of a well-received performance at the United Nations, introduced to the global stage by none other than Oscar-winning musician A.R. Rahman. For this motley bunch of 10 youngsters, between 18 and 19 years, it’s hard to imagine how a random ray of sunshine that entered their lives a few years ago has transformed them.
“We’re blessed,” says Ebinezar Gnanraj, who sits with his viola tucked in the crook of his right arm, his left hand plucking at the strings absent-mindedly. He’s been with the orchestra at Rahman’s K.M. Music Conservatory for about four years, and it has become his life. For these youngsters, who come from underprivileged backgrounds, being part of an orchestra or even having something creative to do, has meant the difference between happiness and despair.
The reason they landed on the right side is because they became the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in another man’s dream. Rahman, responding to questions on email says, “It was a dream I had eight years ago to start our own classical orchestra... it’s becoming a reality very slowly.” Children were chosen from the M.G.R. Higher Secondary School in Kodambakkam to be part of the orchestra, and then on, “everything was taken care of”.
Backed by many painstaking hours of practice and egged on by teachers, donors, the K.M. Conservatory team and Rahman’s own family, the Sunshine Orchestra reached New York to perform for India’s 70th Independence Day, a day that also marked M. S. Subbulakshmi’s birth centenary. With numbers that ranged from ‘Dil se’ to the MS favourite, ‘Kurai ondrum illai’, they brought the audience to its feet.
Rahman says one of the main reasons he committed to the U.N. show was because they allowed Sunshine Orchestra to play. “I spoke to Sunshine’s mentor Srinivasa Murthy and the Director of K.M. Conservatory Fathima about this... and they agreed that it was the right thing to do.” For the children, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, but they knew it was going to be crazy, as Rahman had an impossible schedule. It took two months to get ready.
The orchestra visited Malaysia last year, but missed playing at Rahman’s concert because of the rains. However, they were invited to play at the Petronas Philharmonic Concert Hall the next evening, and Murthy says, “That turned out to be quite an event.” They played a Thyagaraja composition ‘Manavyalakinchara’ in Nalinakanthi ragam and a Hindustani classical in raag Maan.
There’s always light banter going on in the group when they pause between practice. We talk about their U.N. experience. “It was super, super, super!” they chime in near-unison. “When we started playing ‘Endaro Mahanubhavulu’(again a Thyagaraja composition) you should have heard the applause, it was unbelievable,” says Vaijayanthi, senior cellist.
They unwind to tell the story of their lives. “My dad is an iron man, iron man,” says ‘Cello’ Balaji, flexing his muscles, and the team breaks out in giggles spontaneously over a joke they have obviously heard many times over. “Oh, and before I got here, I had nothing to do with music, nothing at all,” he adds. And yet, as the orchestra plays a snatch from Piazzolla’s ‘‘Libertango’’, the cellos are in perfect sync, and he hardly looks at his notes.
The others. too, talk of the little exposure to music they had before they got here. Some used to sing the school prayer, others had ‘listened to music’ on the radio or TV, not one of them would have believed that one day they would play in an orchestra. Vaijayanthi at 19 is the oldest member of the gang and its unelected leader. She says, “We used to come and play and it used to be routine, nothing great. Then Murthy sir came, and things suddenly became different.”
Murthy sir is not only their coach and conductor, but guide and more. Rahman says, “Sunshine’s musical mentor Srinivasa Murthy is such an asset to this mission and in transforming the students to near professional standards”. Murthy is a hands-on teacher, who has spent years with them, and knows the youngsters’ families, their skills, their quirks, and even their little white lies. “It takes 15 years to be a good musician,” he says. “But this bunch has shaped up beautifully. In four years, they have become as good as any film orchestra performing today. It’s not just what you teach them, it’s what’s in them.” Not just music, but the desire to do well, to clutch at the straws that life offers.
Nandini is not the talkative type. Her mother works as a domestic help and life was pretty humdrum, she says, until her teacher took her to meet Rahman. She remembers that they got a chocolate while they waited for him. Vignesh doesn’t talk much either, but when he does he is very articulate. “I was deeply interested in Carnatic music, but it is only after I got here that I picked up the violin. I think I was meant to do just this. Not every one can become what they want to be, but you know, we can..”
With three more batches being trained, Rahman says, “We will soon have the first all-Indian symphonic orchestra… well-versed in Eastern and Western classical music.” Outside, the sun has lunged out from behind the clouds again. Inside the air-conditioned hall where the Sunshine Orchestra gathers its strings together, there’s a warm buzz that’s achievement, triumph, opportunity, friendship and camaraderie all rolled into one. And it’s music to the ears.
ramya.kannan@thehindu.co.in
