VILLUPURAM: One might strum the guitar, or use a fiddle for the violin. But at Svaram, in Auroville International Township, there is no vocabulary for music. All one needs is their hands to play the 90 in-house naturally-crafted instruments. Located near Kottakarai village in Villupuram, Svaram was founded by Austrian national Aurelio C Hammer, a musician, two decades ago.
Thanks to its motto of making music accessible, Svaram has floored not just its loyal base of customers, but the rural diaspora hired at the instrument manufacturing and research institute. S Karthikeyan, the manager of Svaram and a carpenter by profession, tells TNIE, “Instruments made here are global music instruments. The ideas behind them come from different cultures from around the world.”
These instruments are crafted by villagers from the nearby hamlets of Kottakarai, Mathur, Kuyilapalayam, and Sanjeevi Nagar in Villupuram district, and Alankuppam in Puducherry district. Most of them are wage labourers employed in farming and construction work. While 80 workers are directly hired at Svaram, over 100 villagers from these hamlets are indirectly dependent on the institute.
Svaram’s management has paid off debts and reclaimed them without levying any interest. They have also paid part of the school fees of workers’ children and the medical expenses of their families.
The workers are also trained in playing the instruments and engaged in stage performances. Even people from urban spaces, Karthikeyan notes, quit their lucrative jobs to join Svaram for what it offers their souls.
Svaram also takes care of what touches their customers and staff. Blending art with medicine, Svaram uses wood, seeds, metals, clay, shells, and bamboo, among other naturally procured items to create music. A favourite is the neem wood flute.
As is little known, playing the flute is akin to a breathing exercise, and so, if one uses a neem flute one can breathe in purified air. Neem plant carries medicinal properties and is also a preferred alternative to plastic toothbrushes, explains Karthikeyan.
Visitors from foreign countries and students of music throng Svaram not to just learn about their instruments, but also to calm themselves through Svaram’s music therapy. The place has a sound healing room, which looks like an aesthetically pleasing spa with instruments dangling from the ceiling, adorning the walls, and every single inch of the space.
The team also offers therapy to special children. Bhuvaneshwari Ramesh, Assistant Professor at the School of Music Therapy, Institute of Salutogenesis and Complementary Medicine, Puducherry, tells TNIE, “We are using some of the instruments for the auditory stimulation of people with disorders of consciousness. These instruments will produce music vibration, and so we use them as a therapeutic tool.”
Swaram offers classes to all those interested, including students, two days a week (Thursday and Friday). The public can visit their gallery and workshop by paying a nominal fee, while it’s free for government school students. Svaram is now setting up sound gardens in both public and private spaces, based on requests.