A special message from our Vice-President, Dharini, going out to all the Alumni - as well as our supporters, friends, family-members, and arts aficionados at large. Pls read..
It may slowly become tradition that the Alumni's day of performing for the Navarathiri Festival at SIFAS is blessed by torrid rainfall. This year was no different and as organisers, we did get a little concerned on a "decent" turnout for the event. Nonetheless, not to be deterred by heavy rainfall or dwindling support, the show still went on...
My name is Dharini and I am the Vice-President of the Alumni Committee. It has been my pleasure to work with a group of both determined and visionary Alumni, and our progress has been only encouraging. During our Navarathiri Festival show on 20 October 2012, I delivered a short speech on behalf of the organisers.
On the back of that, I would therefore like to take this opportunity and the availability of this blog space to reach out to my fellow alumni.
During my speech, I found it important to highlight that many of us who now recognise ourselves by this tag, "the Alumni", are young adults (some teenagers) who are often at the start of their careers or with young families. We are often overwhelmed even before we think about leaving some room for leisure, let alone the Arts or getting involved with SIFAS again. I myself was in that similar position when I was urged by our Advisor to attend a meeting with the SIFAS Alumni students 4 years ago, at the Aurobindo Room on 13 September 2008. Working hours were long and weekends were usually reserved for friends or family (provided you didn't have to "bring home" work). Free Saturday evenings were a rare commodity. However, I attended that session for one reason: out of an obligation to support our Advisor's efforts. Prior to that meeting, he had persistently urged me to forward the contact details of those Alumni peers I remained in contact with. I believe a list of over 100 names were compiled and my short list of names was added to this.
You may wonder why I am choosing to talk about this first meeting at this stage. This Advisor is my father who has for many years been heavily involved with SIFAS. He had on many occassions lamented about the predicament that SIFAS now faced - our senior students were no longer with us, that they had given up their artistic interests etc. For many years, I had stopped attending SIFAS concerts. Occassionally, I would attend class or rehearsals during my holidays. But this too slowed down once I got married and it drew to a complete halt once I started work. This sequence of events is familiar to each and everyone of us.
I recall 13 September 2008 fondly as my perspective changed very quickly after that. I started to make time to prioritise my Alumni activities as part of my routine. It was a pleasure to work with many fellow Alumni of various generations and disciplines, and organise performances. The rehearsals leading to those performances were my favourite part. It brought me back to my childhood and teenage years where we would spent countless hours with our friends and teachers preparing for Academy Day, Mumoorthigal Vizha, and many other shows.
We had a sense of community then and became naturally attached to our gurus, our peers, our seniors, and those juniors whose rehearsals we sometimes helped to manage.
The SIFAS I remember is a family and that is the vision that we as the Alumni are now trying to bring back to you. Details of our past and ongoing efforts and plans for the future have been publicised on this blog and on Facebook. At times, one or a few of us become inspired by an old picture to take a trip down memory lane by "posting" a photo on Facebook.
However, we believe that more can and must be done.
This post has been written with the intention of asking each of you, how we can get you more involved. We understand your limitations as we are faced by them similarly. Please do reach out to us or subscribe to our database/mailing lists. This is one of the ways of sharing experiences from your own youth with your children and today's society who may/may not be embarking on artistic journeys of their own.
Our
membership criteria requires that an ex-student of SIFAS had been enrolled in a course for a period of at least 5 years in order to be recognised as an Alumni. However, we do also have a group that we call the "Friends of Alumni" and we wish to invite everyone, including parents, teachers and aficionados to become involved with us. At the moment, we have limited manpower and resources and are therefore focused on promoting the Alumni performers through the Dance and Music wings. We hope that some of you will soon join us.
In the meantime, perhaps you may like to check out our Facebook group page. We have updated the page with posters and photographs from recent events.
Dharini Kasinathan
The series has gotten a hugely positive reaction
from the Carnatic music community. “We need more books like these” according to
Bombay Jayashri. T.N. Krishnan describes it as a “pathbreaking effort”. And
Sudha Ragunathan says that the author “packs every line she writes with so much
emotion and passion”.
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