Roslyn Heights brothers' echoes of India

On a warm August day, instead of dressing in their usual shorts and T-shirts, Arjun and Arvind Kumar put on traditional South Indian attire: ivory-colored jubba (an ankle-length shirt), veshti (long wrap worn around the waist) and mel mundu (scarf). With their parents, Prabha Krishnan and Sushil Kumar, and their live-in grandparents, T. and Parvathy Krishnan, they left their Roslyn Heights home and headed to the Hindu Temple Community Center Auditorium in Flushing.

But they weren't there to see a show -- Arjun, 19, and Arvind, 17, were the show.

It was their Sangeetha Arangetram, a coming-of-age recital, their Carnatic vocal debut. They had been training for this performance for 12 years.

Carnatic music is the classical, spiritual music of South India. Like many art forms there, it is based on religion and its roots are ancient, inspired by Hindu gods and goddesses. There is also often a connection between the swaras or notes, and nature -- the sounds of birds and animals. To the untrained Western ear, Carnatic singing sounds highly melodic and exotic; it's a bit like hearing Gregorian chants. But in South Indian culture, where the music is enmeshed in daily life -- heard over the radio, on television, at temples, weddings and parties -- the songs are sacred, akin to prayers.

"It's singing that kind of encompasses every part of your body and mind," said Arvind. "It's not as simple as just using your vocal chords and your mouth and creating the words that you need to pronounce. You need to focus your mind on what you're singing, and put your heart in it in order to achieve the right emotions."

For the Kumars, Carnatic music is a family tradition. In India years earlier, Krishnan had studied Carnatic music and dancing, and she continued lessons when she immigrated to the United States in 1988.

"My mom thought it was a good idea to start young in music, so after she stopped learning she put us with our music teacher," Arjun said.

The main emphasis of Carnatic music is vocal, as opposed to instrumental, although the songs are usually performed with a small ensemble. The brothers' debut included a violinist for melodic accompaniment, a mridangam (double-headed drum) to keep the rhythm and a tambura (long-necked fretless lute) to maintain a base pitch.

Just after a traditional prayer service, Arjun and Arvind sat cross-legged on the stage and performed 18 compositions, known as kritis or keerthanam, in six different Indian languages -- Telugu, Sanskrit, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Brij Basha. The entire performance went on for 3 1/2 hours with no break, although the brothers got to chug water in between their solos.

As the afternoon wore on, the performance became more grueling.

"After our individual solos we could tell that our voices were not as powerful as when we started singing," recalled Arjun. "It was definitely nerve-wracking, because we couldn't tell if the audience could hear our voices slightly cracking!"

The teens are like most other college students: attending lectures, socializing with friends, studying for exams. Arjun is a junior at Stony Brook University, studying psychology and dentistry. Arvind is a freshman at Duke University in Durham, N.C., waffling between majoring in math and chemistry and on a pre-med track.

They aren't strangers to audiences, and music -- Carnatic and otherwise -- is part of their lives. Arjun sings in a co-ed South Asian fusion a cappella group called Stony Brook University Yuva. The group combines Bollywood songs, music found throughout South Asia and American pop music. Arvind, who plays violin, viola and keyboard, is part of the Duke University symphony orchestra.

As children, the siblings took piano lessons in between playing Little League baseball, tennis, basketball and soccer. A shelf running across an entire wall in the blue bedroom they share bears witness to their athletic achievements. But they also had to fit in Carnatic music lessons.

Arjun was 7 and Arvind 5 when their mother signed them up with guru Saavitri Ramanand, who lives in New Hyde Park and in 1987 founded Mukthambar Fine Arts, a school for Carnatic music and dance, in the community. She has about 75 music and dance students.

The boys' father, Sushil, never trained in Carnatic music, but their mother, a dentist, had studied it in India as a girl, continuing lessons with Ramanand once in America. The Kumars wanted to expose their children to this important part of their culture, so every Friday after school, for 12 years, the boys had one-hour lessons. The schedule became more grueling this past year to prepare for the Arangetram.

They never wanted to quit, but there were scheduling "conflicts" at times.

"For a kid in school, Fridays are always the days to look forward to because it's the start of the weekend, and our friends often made plans to hang out," said Arjun.

But the brothers possess a maturity and gravitas that belies their age. Perhaps such traits are a requirement for sticking out so many years of lessons and mastering the Carnatic songs they performed. Still, maturity can present its own problems.

"In general, it is very common for girls to pursue Indian culture and arts," Krishnan said. "Due to the voice change that occurs in boys during puberty, many of them get frustrated and give up vocal music."

Learning Carnatic songs was not only technically challenging, due to the various dialects and pronunciations of certain phrases and words, but there was also a serious language barrier. The brothers can distinguish between a few of the languages, they said, as they grew up hearing Hindi and Tamil, but for the most part, the meanings of the songs eluded them.

So Ramanand had to provide them with English pronunciations and interpret the general meanings of each song. For example, the second song the brothers sang, "Vathapi Ganapathim," which is in Sanskrit, praises Lord Ganapati (also known as Lord Ganesh, the elephant-headed god of wisdom and learning).

"I explained to them that the song worships the Lord who is enshrined in a temple at Vathapi, a place in India," Ramanand said. "We pray to Lord Ganapati as the remover of all obstacles, and performers usually sing it at the beginning of a performance to receive blessings from the Lord for an auspicious performance."

As the day of the Arangetram neared, invitations were sent out, and a program, complete with bios and photos of the family, the performers, their guru and various guests, was printed. "On this auspicious occasion, the artists present their art at the feet of their Guru and those of the divine Gods. The singers take the stage with all their aspirations and trepidations and perform before an art-loving public," read the program's introduction.

Before heading downstairs for a reception dinner at the community center auditorium, more than 300 friends, relatives and community members enjoyed the lengthy performance, which was videotaped. And it went off without a hitch, although after sitting on the floor for all that time, the brothers said their legs were cramped and stiff. Still, said Arjun, it was a huge feat for both of them, and despite a heavy academic schedule and extracurricular activities at college, the brothers plan on making time for more Carnatic singing.

"It's easy to lose touch with your culture if you're not actively involved in it," said Arvind.

So they will keep training in Carnatic singing by adding new songs to their repertoire and continuing lessons with Ramanand, Arvind via Skype from North Carolina. And Ramanand has already asked the brothers to participate in a concert next summer that she hopes to hold in Manhattan.

"There is a flame inside, it has to be kept," Ramanand said. "If you don't encourage it, the flame goes out."

But she added that it wasn't just the boys who had the passion. She also credits their parents and grandparents, who over the years supported the boys' studies and persuaded them to practice, and then practice more.

"I, as a teacher, I did my best to see that this flame doesn't die out, and I'm happy I succeeded in that," Ramanand said.

Music guru in tune with her students

Saavitri Ramanand has been teaching South Indian classical fine arts -- singing, dance and music/dance theory -- for 26 years at various locations. Children begin training as young as 4 years old; Ramanand has 75 students.

Indian classical music is a divine art form. Carnatic music, which is the music of South India, has a distinct style from North Indian Hindustani. Carnatic music emphasizes vocalization, with most compositions written to be sung (versus played on instruments).

Ancient treatises, Ramanand said, describe a connection of the origin of the swaras (notes) to the sounds of animals and birds and man's effort to simulate these sounds through a keen sense of observation and perception.

-- Claudia Gryvatz Copquin