Mumbai: More than a thousand people are seated in an auditorium in Powai, Mumbai. They could be any off-site gathering of office-goers, waiting to hear an industry specialist or a motivational speaker.
The man who takes the stage isn’t in a suit; he isn’t even in studiedly casual jeans and T-shirt; he wears a dhoti and kurta, and a turban. There are no slides. He starts to speak, and it’s not in English, the city’s lingua franca of corporate life: he talks in Marathi. And then he breaks into song, and motions to the audience to start clapping along. The words he is singing are in the style of a Marathi devotional song, a kirtan , which has a tradition going back some 2500 years. The lyrics are simple and the music is catchy, and soon they aren’t just clapping, they are joining in with the singing. The session continues for around twenty minutes, and when they’re done, the audience members are smiling.
Devotional stress-buster
The man on stage is Sandip Bhanose, 51 years old and a native of Nasik, and he styles himself an ‘industrial kirtankar .’ He isn’t a priest, though, or even a professional musician with a religious bent of mind. He’s a former office-goer himself, with experience in the top levels of management in human resources, and he has a Ph.D. in organisational transformation and psychometric testing and analysis behind him. And he believes that singing kirtan s helps busy professional to overcome stress, build motivation and bring in positivity, thereby increasing productivity.
Dr. Bhanose says he grew up listening to kirtans , and they left a strong impact on him. “However, it was used only for spiritual purposes. I strongly felt that this traditional tool can be used for management purposes too.” In 1995, he put his future where his heart was, gave up his job and invented the role of an industrial kirtankar .
It wasn’t easy to convince his family members that this was a good idea; even tougher was to get companies to buy into his idea. “I went to more than 100 corporates but in vain,” he says. “1995 to 1997 was very difficult.”
But his perseverance paid of finally, and he gave his first performance as a kirtankar in 1998. “It was a wonderful experience!” The people who had hired him rated his programme highly, and from then, work began to flow in.
An industrial kirtan session as he practises it is essentially a classroom activity coupled with music and an audio-visual presentation. He writes the songs himself, on themes like energy conservation, safety, quality, productivity, positive thinking, team building, leadership, and stress management. He claims that his sessions result in a decline in stress levels and absenteeism and an increase in employee engagement. “It is increasingly being used as a tool for organisational transformation and development.”
Life-changing experience
“It was a wonderful life-changing experience,” says Prakash Joshi, AGM of Hindustan Aeronautics in Nasik, who had attended a session.
“It helped me to ascertain myself. There is so much positivity now.” Shreeniwas Patki, General Manager at Ceat Tyres, Mumbai, says, “Industrial kirtan s will be a transformational tool for all corporates in the near future. Our officials greatly benefitted from this novel initative.”
Beyond the kirtan
He does not confine himself to the corporate world; he has also done sessions in around 1,500 colleges and 500 schools in around Nasik. He also claims that the use of industrial kirtan in offices has become a research topic in North Maharashtra University and Yashwantrao Chavan Open University.
Aside from the kirtans, Dr. Bhanose also runs an NGO, Garudzep Pratishthan. The NGO has worked on trying to lower pollution of the Godavari river, planted trees, conducted vocational training for young people, and restoring old forts.
He has been felicitated by the Maharashtra government for this last activity.
