Where Blind lead the normals...

Where Blind lead the normals...
By PRABEER SIKDAR

DEHRADUN, 23 September 2008:

It is often said that when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. So, when all doors were closed for the visually challenged Jawaharlal Malhotra, he took to music as a fish takes to water.

Proficient in over half-a-dozen musical instruments like sitar, violin, tabla, flute, synthesizer, harmonium and guitar, Malhotra, who is now 64, ekes out his livelihood by teaching music to youngsters. He also teaches vocal classical.

A resident of Sewak Ashram Road, the locals popularly address him ‘Guruji’. Every day there is a flurry of activities at Gandharv Sangeet Mahavidyalaya, the music school he had founded 30 years ago. “My music school is affiliated to Allahabad based Prayag Sangeet Samiti school and trains students for a 6-year Visharad degree,” he says.

A victim of partition, Malhotra’s family migrated to Dehradun from West Pakistan. He completed BA from DAV PG College but the gradual loss of his sight had put a spoke in his plans for a job. “I am thankful to my mother for enrolling me in a music school as it would later turn out to be my saviour,” he says, thanking his stars.

Though a singer herself, her mother had then forced him to learn music to control his kite-flying obsession.

Malhotra suffers from a rare eye disorder called ‘retinal detachment’ in which the retina peels away gradually leading to complete visual loss. “Now, it is too late to get it treated,” he says, adding that he had learned to live with it.

Married to his former student Kuljeet Malhotra, nee Kaur, the husband-wife duo now runs the music school together. They also run a recognized Junior High School from their two-room house.

Interestingly, the duo had a love marriage. “I had then approached him to learn tabla,” says his wife Kuljeet, who was then working as a Hindi teacher. “I had to face stiff opposition from my parents were opposed to my marriage with a visually challenged person,” she adds. (She still addresses her husband as ‘guruji’)

Bemoaning the decreasing craze for classic music, he says, “When youngsters land at my music school initially, most want me to teach them play Bollywood numbers. But after getting exposed to classical music, they understand the difference and insist me to teach the latter.”

“Light music can never take the place of classical music ever,” he says, while demonstrating it with Bachpan ki muhabbat ko dil se na juda karna -- a hit song from the black and white era Baiju Bawra that he sang to the accompaniment of a harmonium.

“After the doctors expressed their helplessness, I had no other option than to take music seriously,” he discloses.

Despite having a heart problem too, the sexagenarian has not yet lost his spirit. “I am now planning to take out an album of bhajans,” he says.

After playing a classical tune on the guitar, Guruji signs off playing the evergreen Yeh Shaam Mastaani from Kati Patang. (His love for kites continues.)