Deep in the dingy, winding bylanes of chor bazaars in Delhi, Calcutta and Bombay, lie some of India’s greatest cultural keepsakes, left to the perils of fraying memory.
It is through these unexpected abodes of treasure that Vikram Sampath has made his way, in search of India’s earliest gramophone recordings.
What he found was near priceless- speeches made by Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose and some of the earliest recordngs of theatre, music and film. That India has no archives for these bits of history is unfortunate, although that might be set to change, should Vikram have his way.
The lanky 34 year old software engineer-turned-patron-of the arts won the Yuva Puraskar for his book, My Name is Gauhar Jaan, an extensively researched biography of India’s first female gramophone artist, who died in Mysore, begging the government for funds.
That is the sorry state of the arts in post-colonial India, however, for most artists must resign themselves to a life of struggle.
In 2012, the first edition of the Bangalore Arts Festival was held at the Jayamahal Palace Hotel, founded by Vikram Sampath.
“As writers, we’ve been to festivals across the country and it seemed odd that Bangalore, as the knowledge capital, didn’t have one of its own,” he remarked.
The festival, which was held on a small scale last year, with about 65 authors speaking, found immediate success.
This year, it expanded to twice its size, with over 130 authors speaking across two stages. “We wanted to highlight Indian languages and we have grown from Kannada to bringing in a host of others as well, including Kashmiri and Assamese,” said Vikram. Although it was held in Electronics City, hundreds of people decided to brave the commute and the lawns of the Crowne Plaza were absolutely packed.
“Other cities have avenues for discussions, debates and points of view, but Bengaluru lacks that,” said Vikram. “That was the idea behind the festival.”
When they began, they had very little knowledge about conducting a festival and sponsorship, as was to be expected, was very hard to come by.
“It’s very hard to do anything art and culture, sponsors don’t think it’s up their alley,” Vikram recalled.
“At the end of the day, we were just a bunch of rookies.” Be that as it may, this bunch of rookies managed to bring back the romance associated with reading. The Bangalore Literature Festival is also the only one with dedicated section for kids - the Makkala Koota. “That was a big hit as well,” Vikram remarked.
Vikram, who is doing his PhD on the history of Indian music from the University of Queensland, Australia, has also organised a nationwide festival exhibiting his gramophone records.
“We have over 2000 in our database, which can be accessed online for free,” he said. “When I was on a visiting fellowship in Berlin, I realised how many old Indian recordings they housed,” he said. When he decided to start a trust, it was Mohandas Pai, director, Manipal University, who came forward with the seed capital. Pai also provided him with a small office space and the trust was born in 2011.
Today, they have even identified land to set up the archive space, here in Bengaluru. “It will be the first of its kind in India and we hope it will be a national database,” said Vikram.
Trustees across the country source early cinema and theatre recordings, clips of speeches by leaders like Gandhi, Tagore and Bose, all of which, like I said earlier, lie in the seedy flea markets of our biggest cities.
“This is our cultural inheritance,” says Vikram. “It is our right.” They hope to establish these in the public domain by going to schools across the city and through an android app, which was first used, quite successfully, at their festival. “They were used as audio guides, like in Western museums.”
If all goes as planned, Vikram and his team will establish kiosks in different places- the airport, metro station and every other public space.
It’s a big idea and, considering the sort of response that art and culture initiatives receive, a great challenge. But they have managed big things before, here’s hoping they will do them again.
