Dual role: Paediatrician Sangeetha Swaminathan plays the violin at music festivals

The violin stayed mute in one corner of the house for long years as biology books took over. Sangeetha Swaminathan had learnt the violin till she was 18 — after which it took a backseat to studies. Then one day she lovingly took it out of its case. The Bangalore-based pediatrician had to perform at a concert.

“As a child, I was told that music is to be pursued for fun, and not as a profession,” Swaminathan says. “I had remained a bedroom violinist for over two decades. But then I suddenly had an urge to play before an audience.”

Swaminathan learnt Carnatic classical music from a guru and started playing in public. She released a CD of her music in 2006 and has performed in California and at several Indian festivals, including the Hampi festival and the Bangalore Habba.

The stereotype of the Carnatic classical musician — who wears a dhoti, sports a little knot of hair at the back of the head and practises ragas at the crack of dawn — is getting dispelled. Young professionals and students are now taking lessons and juggling music practice sessions and stage performances with other careers.

By day, Hemant R. is a tough-nosed sales manager at insurance company Max New York Life. At night, he metamorphoses into a mridangam player. “I practise the mridangam for three hours every night. That’s the only time I get,” says the 23-year-old who has performed across the world.

Hemant started learning the mridangam when he was four. His first stage performance was when he was 13. “But I realised that I couldn’t make a career out of music. It’s not stable,” says Hemant. So he opted for a company job.

The sales executive manages two lives now. “I use all my leave for performances,” he says. “There are thousands of sales managers like me. But 200,000 across the world know me as a musician.”

Ritwik Raja, president, Youth Association for Classical Music (Yacm), Chennai, says there has been a boom in the number of young people learning Carnatic classical music in the last five years. “In Chennai, there are about 50 people below the age of 21 who sing regularly in concerts. Five years ago, this number was less than half,” he says. Raja finds at least 10 new performers at the annual Chennai Music Festival every December.

Three years ago, Raja was one of them — in a group of six college students who debuted together on the festival circuit. The final-year B.Com student plans to take up music as a career — and study management.

Raja believes the Internet has helped bring young people closer to classical music. “People across the world are now learning Carnatic classical music through Skype and in on-line chat rooms,” he says.

The aficionados, clearly, are technology savvy. A Yahoo group started by the website carnaticsangeetham.com has 950 members at present. “While some members are professional musicians, most are people who want to learn and know about Carnatic music. Many of them are professionals settled outside India,” says K.A. Pyarilal, who launched the website in 2006.

Last July, vocalist Sanjay Subrahmanyan started a podcast service on Carnatic music. “The podcasts deal with different aspects of the music — chatting about myself, playing music or interviews with musicians,” says Subrahmanyan, who is also a finance professional. He has uploaded 10 episodes so far — and each has been downloaded 800-1,000 times. “Technology has made music lovers and musicians come together.”

P.B. Kanna Kumar of the department of music, Delhi University, who gives weekend tuitions in Carnatic classical, finds that most of his students learn music to perform at festivals. “It gives immediate popularity. Not many are keen on learning the values of classical music,” says Kumar.

For people with high pressure jobs, classical music is a stress buster. “My professional life is a rollercoaster ride,” says the Bangalore-based Pavana Urval, who trades on the stock market. To balance a volatile work life, 31-year-old Urval is learning to play the veena again, something that she had started as a child.

Professional musicians are trying to bring Carnatic music closer to the masses. Vocalists T.M. Krishna and Bombay Jayashri have launched a programme, Matrka, to popularise it among the young. They organised a festival last August of Carnatic classical music concerts, lecture demonstrations, chat sessions and games. “We kept it free of cost so that college students could also participate,” says Jayashri.

Yacm too holds regular workshops and lecture demonstrations for school and college students. “We tell students that Carnatic music is not from Mars and is not difficult to understand,” says Yacm president Raja.

The interest in Carnatic classical music is also reflected in the overwhelming success of a new Tamil film called Margazhi Raagam. Krishna and Jayashri feature in the two-hour film devoted solely to a classical music concert.

But not everyone is buying Carnatic music’s soaring story. “I don’t see any great numbers of young people learning Carnatic classical. Most youngsters are not interested in classical arts,” declares V. Ramanarayanan, editor of music magazine Sruti. He feels the youth would rather turn to television, iPods and western music.

Others would differ. For some youngsters, iPods are rocking with Carnatic classical music these days.