Ramayana says that Ravana was a veena maestro, but that’s not the only reason why the prominent city-based veena player Rajesh Vaidya has named his new international school for the instrument after him. “Actually, I designed my own veena recently. It will look like a guitar. I named it Raveena to mean Rajesh Veena. I wanted to have the same title for my school as well, but it started sounding like Ravana when people kept repeating the name. It seemed perfect since Ravana is known for veena playing skills,” says Rajesh.
Ravna International School of Veena was inaugurated by ace Carnatic singer Balamuralikrishna and music director Vidyasagar at Adyar on Saturday.
Speaking on the occasion, Balamuralikrishna said that the demon king Ravana was the first person to use a violin-like instrument as a veena. “Every other instrument was called veena in those days,” he said and added, “Rajesh Vaidya’s veena music can even be used in music therapy.”
Vidyasagar said that Rajesh was part of his troupe initially and was successful with his individual band as well. “Rajesh wants to teach others the skills that he keeps learning. His school will scale heights,” he said.
Rajesh, who has been teaching the instrument for quite sometime now, said he has always had this idea of opening an international school. “We are going to teach veena to people with true interest and dedication and would like to prove that one can become a complete veena player in six years,” he said.
Courses for people with different level of proficiency in the instrument are also available at Ravna and there is also an option to learn and play the veena online. Others who graced the occasion included singers SPB Charan, Shweta Mohan, Drums Shivamani, Nithyasree Mahadevan, Srilekha Parthasarathy, Shriram and actor Ashwin.