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The Indian Community

by David Barasoain

In a classroom at Emory University, Prema Bhat sits, legs crossed, facing a student. She’s teaching them the finer points of Indian classical voice, with the aid of a Tambura. The Tambura is a large hollow instrument. Its base is made from a gourd. It’s a stringed instrument and like a guitar it has turning pegs, but they’re larger, looking almost like miniature door knobs.

PREMA: It has four strings. This note is called the paah, the fifth note. And this is the higher note, saah. This is the lower. So these notes don’t change. Unlike Sitar or any other instrument I can’t play music on this one, it just gives the shruti.

The ‘shruti’ is very similar to what Westerners might call ‘pitch’. Prema has been teaching this style of music at Emory since 1998.

PREMA: Classical music the notes have some ornaments, which we call gomica A note where you have the influence of another note, either the previous note or the next note.

This particular song is a composition about the elephant-faced Hindu god Ganesha: the remover of obstacles. Indian performance art is closely bound to India’s religions, but that’s not to say all Indian music is religious.

Prema’s student today is a young girl, 13 year old Adithi Srinivasiah. She sits facing her teacher, looking composed, and professional, her back straight patting out a tempo on her leg.

ADITHI: It really brought me into more contact with my culture and my traditions.

Born in Atlanta into an Indian family means that Adithi knows the music and culture of India. But just like any other American kid, she is still drawn to American pop culture.

ADITHI: I like Avril Lavigne ‘is she your favorite’, yes she is … I also have favorite actors and actresses. Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp and my favorite actress would probably be like Piper Perabo or Julia Roberts.

Her teacher, Prema, isn’t’t bothered by her outside influences.

PREMA: I enjoy Elvis Presley very much, what I see there is a lot of energy. My teacher said you always have to take the best from ten different musicians. You have to radiate that kind of energy when you perform.

This instrument is an Indian percussion instrument. And it is not uncommon for it to be heard accompanying a vocalist like Prema or Adithi. 15 year old Amit Narayan demonstrates both how to play and say the name of the drum, the Mridangam.

About once a week Amit has a lesson in the home of K. Suresh

SURESH: Yea, I think future is bright. We want our children to learn and when I say ‘our children’ it’s the children in the community, just watching them develop and play.

To learn this instrument Amit was at first given simple lessons, where he had to count out the rhythm just using his hands, then eventually on the drum, and then using advanced mathematical counting.

AMIT: The first day he taught me some cool lessons. He was like play this, it grooves nicely. So I was playing with him for about a year and then he sits me down and says, ‘alright, listen up. This is what Mridangam really is.’ And he starts giving me the math.

And like Adithi, Amit draws from the influences of American music and his love of percussion …

AMIT: But I mean when you think about it Mridangam is awesome. To be able to play this and the drums is a lot of fun.

At the Hindu temple of Atlanta in Riverdale a dance instructor taps out a rhythm for a room filled with teenage girls.

This form of Indian classical dance is called Kuchipudi, found mainly in South India. These students watch and listen to the instructions of their teacher Sasikala Penumarthi.

SASIKALA: Every student comes for an hour session to me. I just want them to focus that one hour a hundred percent.

The dances here can get complicated. But at its simplest it can be broken down into six steps, or Paadas ’ the foot movements. Some of these steps include: The Udghattitam, done by raising the heel and dropping it. The sixth step, is where there toes are dragged across the floor.

SASIKALA: And then I teach them these fundamental foot movements, like very basic foot movements and then they’re like: ‘Wow, oh this is how!’

Unlike the instructors Prema and Suresh, Sasikala is not just training girls, but being assisted by one of them. 24 year old Indra Sarma.

INDRA: The footwork of this dance is extremely intense and very rigorous but throughout it they need to maintain graceful movements of the upper body. So right now you see them tapping out a four beat rhythm in their feet, doing different movements very fast, with the ball of their foot, the heel of their foot with their entire foot, and at the same time their upper body is moving in very complex ways.

Crowding around the doors and looking into the dance studio are some of the girls’ parents. Most are curious to see how their child is doing.

PARENT: Atlanta is one of the major cities that has a lot of culture exposure and different activities related to our Indian culture so it’s a very nice city to bring up the kids.

And for many Indian families, life in Atlanta has brought their kids the opportunities they hoped for. But for some, there’s an added benefit - of having their children learn an artistic culture they feared might have been lost after moving to the States.

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