BENGALURU: Whenever sitarist Rishab Rikhiram Sharma renders a melody, be it a rendition of Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar’s Pehla Nasha or the theme song of the 1972 classic The Godfather, it is always in an attempt to expand the horizons of Indian classical music. Performing in the city this weekend for a novel initiative of ‘Sitar for Mental Health’, Sharma reminisces about his first encounter with the instrument.
“My parents were more keen on teaching my elder brother. They won’t even let me touch the instrument. Now I think they were trying to play reverse psychology with me,” laughs Sharma. It was only when a damaged sitar returned from Switzerland, that Sharma’s intrigue transformed into fascination after seeing the process of the instrument being mended. “I was just watching the sitar for a couple of days, then on the third day I asked my dad if I could try it. He said okay and within a few minutes, I was playing songs on it. He finally decided to start teaching me the next day when I was 10 years old.”
Sharma’s talent soon caught the eye of sitar virtuoso late Pandit Ravi Shankar after a performance in Delhi in 2011, when a clip reached Shankar’s wife. Becoming the youngest and last disciple of the musical legend was completely unexpected for Sharma. “He was very funny but was the strictest teacher. I was just very scared of him whenever I would learn from him, but now I understand,” Sharma reflects, acknowledging the urgency with which Shankar imparted his knowledge, aware of his limited time at his age.
Having the responsibility of carrying forward the legacy of not just as the ‘disciple of Pandit Ravi Shankar’ but as the son of a family of respected instrument makers could become an overwhelming task. “He [Pt Ravi Shankar] would often tell me that I was probably his last disciple and I’m going to have to take this legacy forward. As a child, I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. As I grow older, I see how big a responsibility it is,” shares Sharma, who performed during the first Deepavali party at the White House in 2022.
A vocal advocate of mental health, Sharma says that his initiative was born out of personal struggles. The pandemic, coupled with the loss of his grandfather in 2020, plunged him into grief and anxiety. Turning to music and therapy, he discovered the healing potential of the sitar. “I realised the power that sitar harnesses in making you feel better and how interesting of a cognitive journey it is to play this instrument. So I just want people to experience it,” he says.
While beginning the initiative, he had to navigate through the stigma attached to conversations around mental health. “I haven’t seen any musicians talk about mental health. People even in my own family questioned why I was doing it, worried about the kind of perception it might project. And that’s not their fault either. That’s just how the content was in the previous generations, says Sharma, adding, “I even changed the word from mental health to mindfulness but I felt that’s not right. I’m sharing my story so that people know they are not alone.”
The New York-based music producer has always tried his best as an artist to make his music more relevant.
“I love hip hop, as well as rap music. If you listen to my tracks such as Chanakya, and Tilak Kamod, they are hip in nature, they’re not typically classical,” he says.
(Sitar for Mental Health is on March 31, 7pm at Prestige Srihari Khoday Centre for Performing Arts. Tickets available on zomato.com)