This mikeless kutcheri series in the park helps children overcome their fear

They are the first to introduce kutcheri at an unconventional space which inspired many to follow suit. TT Srinivasaraghavan, MD, Sundaram Finance Ltd., the man behind the mikeless kutcheri concept, spoke to us in detail about it. It was his idea to restrict it to children aged below 15 years with the idea of making this a stepping stone for young musical talent.

“It was the spirit of the Sundaram Finance Mylapore Festival that led to the spin-off, in February 2006, of the Sunday Kutcheri in the park. As part of the Sundaram Finance Mylapore Festival, we had been organising kutcheris in the park once a year during the four days of the Mylapore festival. The audience suggested that we should look at organising the kutcheri more frequently and not restrict ourselves to just once a year. And that was the inspiration for the monthly Sunday Kutcheri that we launched on the first Sunday of February 2006,” says Srinivasaraghavan.

They have restricted the concert to children below 15 years as they believed it would help them shed their inhibitions and give the confidence to move up to the next level. “There are no chief guests and the young budding artists are the ‘stars’ of the show. For most children, this is their first concert. We did not want to disturb the peace of the morning walkers with loud music and hence, consciously stayed away from mikes and speakers. Sometimes, people have said to me personally that we were being very ostrich-like in forcing these children to sing without mikes and speakers, that they couldn’t be heard and they couldn’t do justice to their art. I have taken exactly the opposite view. We have to be conscious and mindful of the fact that we operate in a public place. The fact is that there are people who come to the park to do yoga, meditate and to do a variety of things. It would be presumptuous on our part to assume that all of them are lovers of Carnatic music. Therefore, the first thing we decided was ‘no mikes no speakers’,” he explains.

The first Sunday kutcheri in the Park that took place in February 2006 itself has an interesting background to it. It was by a group of students from Vishwa Vidyalaya, Vandalur. “Many of these students were children of farmers and labourers, none of whom had ever had the benefit of school education or had any leanings towards Carnatic music. Their performance that morning on February 5, 2006, would rank to this day as probably one of the best. We heard that they have gone on to achieve bigger laurels, both academically and in music. For those students and several hundreds of children since then, the kutcheri in the park, we believe, has been a nice platform to showcase their talent before an informal audience. Another set of students from the same school came to present on the occasion to celebrate the completion of the 10th year,” he added.

Being an open-air kutcheri, amid falling leaves and birds chirping around the park, this brought out the best in children. “This initiative has a small role in helping them shed the initial inhibition that we normally associate with stage performances by giving them a platform to showcase their talent.”

The kutcheri in the park has also been featured in the Limca Book of Records for the longest running open air mikeless kutcheri for children in the country.