Arnav Kuppachi might look like your average 10-year-old, but when he begins talking, his words precede his age. He is very confident and talks like he knows what he is doing. Especially so, when he talks about his love for drumming. His parents, Kalyan and Navita, deserve credit for where he has reached today. They spotted the “sense of rhythm” in him early and encouraged him to take up music. Luckily for Arnav, his school, too, helped him dabble in various musical instruments like keyboard, violin, piano, guitar and tabla, before moving on to drums.
Recently, during a World Music Day event in the city, Arnav was one of the youngest players. In fact, he stood out in the band as all the other members were over 27 years of age! The way the little boy matched up with their experience, impressed everyone in the audience.
“I was first part of a band with members who were in my age group, but I wasn’t happy because they didn’t spend time practising and weren’t taking it seriously,” says Arnav, explaining that for him drumming is a serious business.
In fact, it was this interest that pushed his parents to bring out the best in him and provide him with good training.
“All his music teachers in school always told us that he was a quick learner and we wanted to nurture the talent in him. So, we tried enrolling him in a class with Dominic, a well-known drummer in the city. But Dominic felt he was really young then — he was just eight years old. However, today, Arnav has been practising for over a year and now Dominic sometimes feels that we should have started a bit earlier,” shares Arnav’s father, Kalyan.
“I love playing the drums more than anything else. I keep practising as much as possible. I was nervous at the World Music Day event, but I think it went pretty well. Everyone congratulated me and it makes me happy that I achieved something,” says Arnav, who has been performing at several places in the city.
He has huge plans for the future and is now gearing up to join an in-house band at Microsoft, where his mother works.
Arnav says he wants to go on to become one of the best drummers ever. “I also want to learn tabla, so that I can use both the instruments to create fusion music,” he concludes.
