Sunday, May 04, 2008
One world One music
Sunday , May 04, 2008
Sarhad, a registered trust, plans to institute a university of music that can ease tensions globally through its unified diversities and dispersal of universal knowledge on music
Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one- was the anthem Lennon sang to galvanise the counter culture movement. He believed that music could raze boundaries and lived and died for the belief. That belief now has found wings and a prayer again half a world away. Sarhad, an organisation working for peace in militancy-hit regions, wants to concretize this healing power of music, embody it in buildings, house it in a campus and nurture it with citizens all across the globe.
Working since 1997 for promoting peace, rehabilitation of victims of violence (specially in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir) and reconstructing ruptured spirits, Sarhad, now wants to create a university of music where universal knowledge of music could pass freely inside and outside the country. Sanjay Nahar, president of Sarhad, is ready to invest his energies, resources and soul to see his dream transmogrify to reality.
"...I got together with other members of Sarhad on an enterprise of working towards an institute which would be devoted solely to the study of music in all its forms, subjects, genres – folk , western, pop, rap, rock and what have you, from all across the world. Music has played a great role in our tradition, culture, history and spirituality, for whatever reasons, say prayer, leisure, offering, poetry and of course pacification. It is the one divinity that transcends regional contours to assume celestial dimensions. It touches the soul. And there is no institute that studies music and only music irrespective of its origin and nationality. The truth is, music has no nationality. It belongs to the world and is one despite all its variances,” he says, “and we do not have any place where all its aspects can be united for research, study, promotion and dissemination globally, without any discrimination.”
For the same, Nahar got together with eminent personalities like Dr Mahmood Rahmaan who has been the vice chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University and also the chairman of the Finance Commission in Kashmir which deals with betterment of Kashmir as a people's state and mapping the backward areas. “India has been a virtual storehouse of knowledge and music and we will build on this idea. The project of a university is in its conceptual stage. There are so many universities in the country. We do not want to add just another. We hope to create a place thriving with a cosmopolitan outlook and the multi-lingual characteristic of music. It will not belong to a country but the world, secular, global and moral,” says Rahman, Sarhad’s mentor.
Getting specific, Nahar adumbrates a skeleton plan. “We are seeking help from a lot of people with reference to this. We already have land near Wagholi in mind. The ideation has been completed. The legal work and architectural processes will begin by the end of June. We hope to have laid the foundation of the university in about a year,” says a hopeful Nahar.Labels: music, peace, Sanjay Nahar, Sarhad, universal
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