So True

By Rasheeda Bhagat, "For the soul" - The Hindu Business Line - Chennai, India
Friday, January 30, 2009

Sufi music festival Ruhaniyat finds a passionate following… both among its corporate sponsors and music-lovers across cities

These are trying times for any corporate and at the best of times the IT industry is one where long hours at work, long periods away from home, and challenges at the workplace are common. So when the employees of India’s largest IT company, TCS, ask their head honcho S. Ramadorai, how he battles stress, he has a simple answer.

“I tell them to do two things; listen to music and go for regular jogs or walks, which I do every day. I walk 4.5 km early in the morning and listen to classical music either in my car or on my i-pod when I travel.”

And thanks to the influence of his wife, Mala, he has now become passionately fond of Sufi music as well, and TCS, as a corporate angel, has helped extend the reach of the annual Sufi music festival Ruhaniyat (soulfulness) to seven Indian cities.

Even though away in Singapore on work, Ramadorai made time for a telephonic interview to talk about his company’s support for this cause and his own discovery of Sufi music. “I developed an interest in North Indian classical music from my wife Mala. I had grown up being a devout fan of Carnatic music but when we moved to Mumbai in 1972, after being at home for a couple of years she decided to pick up skills in North Indian music both in terms of college education and learning. And she has performed quite a bit even during the Chennai music festival.”

So having tuned into North Indian classical music, when Mahesh Babu, the founder of Banyan Tree Events, approached him through Mala for supporting Ruhaniyat through corporate sponsorship, he was receptive to the idea.

“This was seven years ago; at that time it was a very unusual idea as this particular type of music was not well known among music lovers in our country. And in most of the metros it was almost unheard of. Since it was an exotic and unique art form, I said we must encourage it and look at it very seriously,” says Ramadorai.

But what “appealed to me the most was that more than it being an exotic and unique art form, they were tracking down artists from remote areas of the country and providing them a platform to showcase their talent with Sufi music as the basis. I felt it was like taking a rough diamond and polishing it to make it absolutely beautiful. That I thought was a phenomenal innovation in the field of music,” he adds.

Beyond language, culture
So TCS started supporting the Ruhaniyat festival, and “we soon realised that Sufi music traverses cultural and language barriers and has a universal appeal. We started in Mumbai and then carried it across the country,” says Ramadorai, adding, “I saw in the Banyan Tree team passion, sincerity and enthusiasm and that’s why through my corporate colleagues I introduced them to quite a few sponsors and I’m grateful to those jointly participating with us, such as Indian Bank, IDBI, State Bank of Hyderabad, etc.”

Mahesh Babu of Ruhaniyat, which started in Mumbai eight years ago, says he developed interest in Sufi music while studying geophysics in Hyderabad. “We would visit durgahs, listen to fakirs and the concept of giving a platform to lesser-known singers evolved when we started Banyan Tree Events as an organisation 12 years ago. Today it has become a bridge between performing arts and corporates.

The first two years were a little difficult, but we said this is our culture and we must protect it. So my wife Nandini and I put in our own money initially, but now things have improved and wherever you go there is a full house.”

But 12 years ago corporate sponsorship was difficult to get. “Rock music, yes. Classical music, no,” he recalls and adds, “Like Mr Ramadorai, Yogesh Agarwal, CMD of IDBI, has been very supportive and this year they are co-sponsoring three cities.”

Nandini presents the programme and every year singers from 4-5 countries participate in Ruhaniyat; the highlight of the Chennai programme (February 8) this year will be singers from Egypt and two new Punjabi singers. The audience “is a mix of young and old, yuppies, Page 3 people and hardcore Sufi music lovers,” says Babu.

He is surprised that even in Chennai it has become so popular. “Actually it was Mala Ramadorai who told us we should do it in Chennai. We were not convinced and she said ‘you’d be surprised’ and that really happened; we get more crowds in Chennai than any other city.”

In each city Ruhaniyat costs about Rs 12 lakh “as we work on shoestring budgets; we have to pay for the artists’ travel, accommodation, fees etc. The cost could go up to Rs 25 lakh but we keep a tight control on the budget,” he says.

In all cities TCS is the main sponsor along with another corporate; for example, in Chennai, Indian Bank is the co-sponsor, in Hyderabad State Bank of Hyderabad, and in Mumbai and two other cities it is IDBI. In each city half the programme is different; tickets are nominal at Rs 250-300 and the idea is to break even and not make profits.

“In eight years we have featured over 3,000 artists and half of them have gone all over the world.”

No stars
The highlight of Ruhaniyat, he points out, is there are no stars here. “They are actually practising Sufi singers; some of them have not even seen a train; and when they saw their pictures in Mumbai newspapers they were surprised! But their singing is so true and so original.”

The language at these concerts is Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Persian, Punjabi, Turkish. That is the point made by M.S. Sundara Rajan, CMD of Indian Bank, Ruhaniyat’s Chennai sponsor for four years. “We believe music has no language or barriers and that is proved by the fact that budding artists from all over the world come and perform here. Also, banking is a stressful industry and people working in it are under a lot of pressure… it’s like being in a pressure cooker with no safety valve.”

That’s why he tells colleagues to listen to music to de-stress; “music calms the mind and helps you make tough decisions in the right frame of mind.”

To the inevitable question that music maestro A.R. Rahman is highly influenced by Sufi music, Babu says, “Last year he was very keen to attend, he sent a message saying so but he could not make it. This year too, we’ve sent a message to him, but we know he is extremely busy.”

Picture: One with the music: Mohamad Farghaly and group from Egypt (The Hindu).