Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Yatra
Asha Ramesh, Artistic Director, Ragamalika School of Music, is gearing up to present ‘Yatra,’ a musical program to benefit Community Seva, a Bay Area nonprofit that works with the unhoused population.
Asha Ramesh has planned a program to showcase her compositions and her work over 33 years of working as a Carnatic musician and teacher in the Bay Area. Her soaring voice, excellent diction, which brings out the beauty of India’s multilingual music tradition and, most of al,l the emotion she conveys through every musical note, is a celebration of her singular passion and countless hours of sadhana in honing this art form. Her legendary musical lineage under Guru D.K. Jayaraman in Chennai provided the grounding for her lifelong engagement with music, and Bay Area audiences have been fortunate to hear her voice fill local auditoriums for over 3 decades. In addition to working towards musical excellence, Asha believes in the power of music to give and to heal.
She says, “Yatra – the upcoming musical fundraiser is a reflection of my core belief that my art needs to engage with the community by making a tangible difference in people’s lives. My students and I stage a musical production every few years to celebrate student progress as they mature in their involvement with Carnatic music. We also use this as an opportunity to raise funds for the community. This year, when we decided to hold a fundraiser, unanimously, the Ragamalika committee decided on Community Seva, a non-profit leader right here in San Jose.”
Community Seva
Community Seva was founded by Nathan Ganeshan in 2013 to serve food to the unhoused population in San Jose. Started with a humble act of altruism when he delivered a box of pizza in a local park, the organization he founded has now grown to serve 390,000 meals. They have expanded their operations to include the distribution of over 6500 hygiene kits and 1100 feminine kits, provided access to hot showers and laundry facilities, and spearheaded the distribution of warm blankets and student backpacks. Their track record of responding to the community’s needs has been nothing short of remarkable. An army of 4200 volunteers and donors brings their passion to serve, and they use their intellectual and operational expertise to run programs that serve the most vulnerable amongst us.
Asha Ramesh was part of a virtual fundraiser organized by Community Seva at the height of the COVID pandemic. As we hunkered down in our homes during the first few months of the pandemic, the unhoused faced a crisis of unimaginable proportions. During this time, Community Seva managed to overcome operational obstacles, followed public health guidelines, and held a virtual fundraiser to support their activities. Dinner boxes were delivered to the homes of donors, and attendees got to enjoy a virtual musical offering by Asha Ramesh.
Nathan Ganeshan shares proudly, “Even during the pandemic, we did not miss a single weekend of distributing food. Our volunteers worked on a plan to keep serving since the unhoused needed us more than ever.” During a time of global crisis, music and the passion to serve food came together to heal the most vulnerable amongst us.
A musical journey
Asha shares that she first deeply felt the power of music to heal when she was barely a teenager. Growing up in Jamshedpur, she attended a convent school where their Mother Superior could not attend the Christmas Mass due to ill health. So, she, along with other students, visited her and she sang a Hindi bhajan – hearing the soothing music, the nun teared up and soon sat up in bed. “It was really the first moment when I realized that the voice has the power to touch human beings to heal. And, believe it or not, my mother used to ask me to sing when she felt the throb of a headache or the stuffiness of a cold – without popping a pill, she absorbed the power of music to make her feel better,”
With this deep conviction in the power of music to heal and uplift others, Asha Ramesh and 30 of her students will bring out the beauty of her compositions during the fundraiser, Yatra. Since she has composed songs for multiple dance schools over the years, it is only natural that dancers Rasika Kumar of Abhinaya Dance Company, Akshaya Ganesh of Nrithyollasa Dance Academy, Sowmya Sridharan of Bharathakala Kutiram, Vani Suresh of Vishwa Shanti Dance Academy and Priyanka Chary of Sankalpa School of Dance have come together to breathe visual life into her dance compositions.
Next-gen musicians
Accompanying the vocal musicians is a roster of the next generation of Carnatic musicians – Amit Ranganathan on mridangam, A.V. Krishnan on ghatam, Vikram Ragukumar on violin, and Guhan Venkataraman on veena. As this talented group of artists and sincere students of Carnatic music come together, their efforts have been buoyed by the fact that the funds will go directly towards purchasing hygiene kits for 1000 unhoused students in the East Union High School District in San Jose. Another initiative is to support college students at San Jose State University who face food insecurity and unstable living conditions.
In supporting students, Nathan Ganeshan says, “Our objective is simple – let us help you with food and other critical survival tools so that you can focus on your education, which will have a profound impact for decades to come.”
Community Seva Impact
With a tinge of emotion, Nathan shares that when Community Seva offers hot breakfasts, some mothers feed the freshly cooked meal to their young children, allowing them to enjoy a ritual that many of us take for granted. Many of us take much more than that for granted- a fridge that overflows with food, kitchen cabinets that burst with Costco-sized food packets, and even a second fridge that adorns the garage space. “Giving for Community Seva comes easily from the vantage point of what we have,” Asha shares, adding, “It is truly a way of saying thank you.”
In supporting this musical fundraiser, we can feel the palpable synergy of how art and philanthropy can come together to serve the community. Asha says, “Preparing for this program is a personal celebration of the bond between student and teacher. My students have taught me so much about myself, helping me delve deep into my own musical technique. When I am trying to reach a student with corrections to help shape their musical approach, I have to constantly tweak and tailor what I say so that it will reach them. This constant process of give and take underlies every lesson in the journey of learning classical music that spans several years. As we prepare, my students are enthused that their music can bring tangible benefits to students much like them in age but who have vastly different living conditions. I hope you will feel the sincerity in their voices as they sing to reach you through their art.”
We are bound to feel the sincerity in their voices and the passion of Community Seva volunteers when we attend ‘Yatra.’ The icing on the cake? A free dinner box sponsored by Mylapore Express at the end of the concert is included in the ticket price.
Yatra promises to be a true community celebration of music, philanthropy, and food!
Details
Early bird ticket sales end on May 25th – so, make sure to grab your tickets soon.
Tickets:
If you wish to volunteer with Community Seva, please send an email to volunteer@communityseva.org