“Hindustani vocalist Padmini Rao talks on the relevance of classical music today.“
Imagine you’re watching a sunset. You are probably on a bridge or on the edge of a cliff watching the sun glisten on the water and slowly melt away into the horizon. Wherever you are, it is imperative that you’re in the right mood to appreciate the beauty of nature. “Learning classical music is similar to this. There is a mystique about it which people work too hard to understand. That’s not how it should be. You won’t be able to understand everything in 140 characters. We have to tune ourselves to understand it,” says Padmini Rao, a Hindustani vocalist. She led a Hindustani classical music workshop at Bhairavi | The Music Room in Mattancherry on Saturday and Sunday.In a conversation with Express, Padmini, who is also a disciple of renowned vocalist Prabha Atre, talks about the relevance of classical music today. “In a family unit, music can make all the difference. My family would sit together and listen to music. This would translate into better communication outside of music and helped us bond. Classical music is all about beauty, melody, and peace. These are timeless. It may never receive the standing of Bollywood music or pop, but then that’s why it is called classical music,” she says.
Childhood
Deeply rooted in musical values, Padmini’s childhood memories always featured classical tunes in the background. “My parents are not musicians but they are musically inclined. I got a passion for music and art from my mother. I remember music being played at our home 24×7. For my brother and me, our only family outing was going to music concerts. It was common for musicians to drop in at our home. Listening to them and falling asleep to their songs have been some of my best childhood memories,” the Mumbai-born recounts.
Pursuing music, however, was never even in Padmini’s dreams. “Being a chemistry graduate, I was all set to do research in it. Yet, years of music had seeped in somehow. That’s how I found my calling,” she says. Having trained under Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar and Prabha Atre, Padmini soon learned music is a way of life. Beyond music, the teachers taught about the repertoire of concerts and how music is direct communion between God and an individual. Holding onto this lesson, Bengaluru-based Padmini’s workshop in Kochi focused on the developmental techniques in the kirana gharana style of singing khayal, giving emphasis to the contributions of Prabha Atre to the gharana.
