My first exposure to Society for the Promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture Amongst the Youth (SPIC-MACAY) was in 1983 as a dance student in Delhi, when I had the privilege to attend a lecture-demonstration by the great Ustad Bismillah Khan Sahib. I discovered that SPIC-MACAY organises lecture-demonstrations by the great maestros in various educational institutes for students so that they can acquire an appreciation of the beautiful classical arts. Held free of charge, these often become the first occasions where young people can sit, hear and watch the great ustads and gurus play, perform and talk about their chosen art form.

Soon after, SPIC-MACAY began organising youth conventions where students would spend a full week attending workshops by maestros of Indian classical music and dance as well as leading folk artists. There are performances, talks by eminent people from different fields, screening of cinema classics, craft and yoga in an ashram-like atmosphere.

The mornings start with yoga followed by intense workshops. The students get an insight into their cultural heritage, its values and ethos. It is a rare opportunity to imbibe from the gurus values and thought processes which they have gained after years or rather a lifetime of rigorous labour and practice. I have been lucky enough to have participated, along with almost 50 students from Pakistan, in two of these conventions in the last two years, in Chennai and Mumbai.

Here are excerpts from my chat with Dr Kiran Seth the founder of SPIC-MACAY and Harsh Narayan, the director of Society for the Promotion of World Heritage Amongst Youth (SPWHAY), who were recently in Karachi for a few days.

Dr Kiran believes that TV and films should not be the only ‘cultural’ input in a child’s life. “If children are engaged with serious art forms from their childhood, no matter what, they can develop high artistic excellence. Cultural education should be the fourth element in the trio of reading, writing and arithmetic.”

When asked why he thought it was important for the youth to know classical art forms of dance and music, Dr Kiran explained, “A comparative study of students from various schools has shown that the students from a school where dance, yoga and music are compulsory were brighter, more concentrated and focused and did not require outside coaching. Serious art forms help us to transcend the mundane and besides giving us pleasure, they help us enter creative spaces outside the realm of mere information. Great art has been distilled from centuries of knowledge and experience and is therefore harmonious, non-violent and peaceful.”

Dr Kiran believes that TV and films should not be the only ‘cultural’ input in a child’s life. “Nothing can sweep the rug from under one’s feet if the feet are firmly planted on it. If children are engaged with serious art forms from their childhood, no matter what, they can develop high artistic excellence. Cultural education should be the fourth element in the trio of reading, writing and arithmetic. Our mission is to have every child experience the ‘x’ factor” (call it ‘spirit’ if you will) in all classical art forms.”

But do our present times allow young people to find the time to go into classical art in the way that is required? Dr Kiran said “Anything of depth requires time, without time you cannot get it. The understanding of the great depth that is in the classical arts is important.” He further explained, “If you start the process of dilution there is no end, but if you keep the purity and refine it further and further, over centuries, you come up with something that even you do not know about. So we are told by the gurus that you may not touch, change or shift the focus, even delta, the raison d’être should not change, no modification is allowed. This is the type of rigour that has kept these classical arts alive.”

Dr Kiran quoted another example. “Let me give you another story. I learnt music from Ustad Zaheeruddin Dagar. One day when I was going for my class a very angry man was coming down the stairs. I asked him who he was and what was the matter. He was a sabziwala and said ‘they keep buying and don’t pay their dues, they owe me a couple of thousand rupees’. I felt so sad that my gurujee was in debt to the sabziwala. A couple of days later a famous German jazz musician offered ustadjee a huge amount of money plus royalties to cut a disc with him but gurujee refused. I was so shocked at his refusal. Later one day I asked him why he had refused and he replied, ‘my buzurgs will never forgive me’. I was totally puzzled. It took me years to understand the significance of the statement ‘my buzurgs will never forgive me’. But now I am beginning understand what he meant.”

“A comparative study of students from various schools has shown that the students from a school where dance, yoga and music are compulsory were brighter, more concentrated and focused and did not require outside coaching.”

He emphasised on the need for perseverance. “One has to learn to dive deep into the sea to actually see the deep sea fish. Today the young people are not ready to keep going further into these deep levels — they want the fish to come up. So what does the fish do, it can either not come up and die unsung and unrecognised, or it can come up. But those that do come up then change and mutate into something totally different, they do not anymore remain the deep sea fish that they were. So the young person never gets to understand what the deep sea fish is all about. It takes time to understand these things. Every day I realise that I know so little — the true realisation of the fact that knowledge is so far from us and this is the inward realm. We cannot even imagine where this realm of heritage can take us, it is the experimentation of many many lifetimes — it is not just one generation, it is like a research process that is happening inwards. This is why the guru — shishya parampara — is important; one needs to sit with an ustad for years and years. The realms of these arts require a deep introspection — they are so great that once you go into these domains you can go half crazy, they are so beautiful — these classical arts are the roads, the avenues to move into the greater domains. It is a combination of intellect and passion.

Why is there still so much hatred and violence in people, despite music and dance in the subcontinent? Dr Kiran expresses his opinion openly, “If you are truly connected with yourself you do not find fault with others. Most people are disconnected with their own self; most problems in the world are because one blames others for one’s own problems. I don’t think the ordinary person is full of hatred and violence — yes they can get swayed, 90 per cent of people are easily swayed and only 15 or 20pc have deep convictions and will stand by them.” After a pause he adds, “I believe that a person who has read poetry will be much less swayed. You show me one artist, who has ever killed anyone in the name of religion. Classical art takes you to domains beyond what you can see, beyond the tangible. Culture to me is what enables one to see beyond the physical worldly things.”

When I asked Harsh Narayan about his commitment and how he manages to volunteer for SPWHAY, he said, “Volunteerism is part of the agenda of our movement. Music, dance and yoga are the means to understand some of the deep concepts which have been developed in this part of the world. But to get a person to experience volunteerism is so amazing.”

Harsh is also a filmmaker and working on an Indo-Pak joint production. “My purpose is to see an end to the Indo-Pak conflict. I want to pass a beautiful world to the next generation —not a world of violence and wars”.

Kiran and Harsh are right. The aim of classical arts is to take us to realms where human beings become pacifists, touch an element of truth within ourselves and become more just and humane.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, December 13th, 2015