“Music has its own journey. Like any other art, it is an inclusive process. And to each artist, his creation is all he has. Music brings you down and it takes you up and above. You fly high and higher but your feet need to be on roots.” Says renowned singer and composer of our age, Mr. Sheykhar Ravjiani. With such grounding energy, he had set the ambiance of calmness and made each one of us fall in love with his art form and its journey.

After Singapore and Dubai, Sheykhar Ravjiani paid a visit to GIIS Hadapsar, Pune on Saturday Nov12’ 22 as a part of GIIS- Sheykhar Ravjiani Music School. It’s the second consecutive year of one of its own such programs where he personally mentors our students who hold prospects to achieve their dreams and pursue music. “I’m really happy to be here and was waiting for Pune to happen for so long. I’m thrilled to be a part of and able to initiate something like this. The idea is to bring children like you, closer to music. To find the talent and make your dreams come true. To mentor one-on-one and give you a direction”, he expressed.

Students of GIIS, Hadapsar commenced the event with a welcoming song, followed by Balewadi students’ choir singing. Each student present had performed and showcased the best of their talents– be it singing one of Sheykhar’s compositions or veteran Lata Ji’s classical song. Besides this, students also got their talented hands-on instruments and undoubtedly had set the atmosphere of Jugalbandi between Indian and western instruments. As witnessed, they were motivated and elated seeing their mentor nodding and shaking his head in tune with them, let alone guiding them during and after performances. Everyone presented there was rhythmic and in sync with reverberations of beats in the room.

The performances later were followed by a Q&A session, and that we must say, struck a keen conversation from both ends. In answer to what had happened that made him realize that music and he were for each other, he shared with us how his journey had begun– at the age of 7 he had shown a striking interest in learning a keyboard, and continued to learn one or another instrument all by himself until one fine day he had decided to record his tunes on a cassette and as we know rest is history. He gave everyone a good laugh when asked students if they knew what even a tape recorder and cassettes were.

In form of answers to each of the questions presented by the students, he shared with us lessons for the upcoming generation. He continues to say that even though it’s been 25 years in the industry, it’s only now that he feels he has got his hands on it. When asked about his take on criticism, he said that it’s okay if someone didn’t like our creation, we do not expect everyone to like what we’ve created. After all criticism and after everything in between, the most important thing is to CREATE. “The creative journey is like throwing and targeting a dart.” He insists the future generation keeps on aiming and not be in a hush-hush “because only when you fail ten times, the eleventh will come. And that without a doubt will be the best by far because success doesn’t come overnight” inspires one of the greatest artists of today’s music fraternity.

As the session was concluding, he gave pearls of wisdom to our students–be with the right kind of people, that everyone in this world is talented, and all we need to do is find our own slice and be 100% in it. And at last–do what you like for the love of it rather sake of it. Mr. Sheykhar has shown time and again untethered confidence in today’s generation. He affirms it and says, “Our country’s next-gen is the finest. They would take our name and pride to the zenith.”