stamped impressions
In tune with excellence
Reeta Sharma

They excel in both academics as well as music. Meet Kashish (17) and Lovish (15), sons of police officer Jagdish Kumar Mittal. The two teenagers have not only proved their mettle as classical singers at the Harballabh Sammelan in Jalandhar but have also bagged a number of scholarships in academic courses. While the older sibling has just finished Class XII, the younger one has entered Class XI.

Kashish, thanks to his mother Sangita Mittal, began learning classical vocal music at the age of three and a half years in Chandigarh. His training got disrupted for a couple of years when his father got posted to Barnala. It was resumed at the age of eight with Prof Harwinder Singh once his father came back to Chandigarh. Lovish was lucky to begin his training at the age of six.

Kashish won his first prize, within four years of the training, in 2001. He was declared second in the all-India competition (junior category) held at the Harballabh Sammelan. Within a year, he was declared first from the same platform. He also won prizes in other musical contests, including the one held by Scindia School. Harballabh has a practice that any student who wins the first prize in the junior category would have to compete in the senior category irrespective of his or her age. So, in 2003, Kashish, then only 14 years old, participated in the sammelan and was declared third.

Both brothers eventually received training in Indian classical vocal by renowned Guru Pandit Yash Pal. Under his grilling training, Kashish won the all-India scholarship from the National Council of Education Research and Training in 2004. Lovish, following in the footsteps of his brother, too won the half-yearly national scholarship in 2004. Besides excelling in music, the boys are doing extremely well in studies too. Their schools were proud of them as they never secured less than 90 per cent.

Kashish recently competed for the prestigious Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education Scholarship called International Olympiad in which two lakh students participated from the entire country. He is the only student who has cleared the competition in all three subjects—physics, chemistry and mathematics. All selected students will go for a month-long camp, where six students for each subject would be selected. In the third stage of the competition, the selected candidates would go to Korea for chemistry, Singapore for physics and Slovania for mathematics. The winners at this stage would be picked up by institutions like Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US.

Not one to be left behind, Lovish, along with excelling in academics, took to computers like a duck to water. In 2005, he won the first prize in All India Senior Computer Gaming. At present, he is busy making his own website on animation.

Both brothers say that their father has encouraged them at every step. "Yet", they say, "it is our mother who left everything to ensure that we learnt serious Indian classical music. She neither forced us to study nor learn music but motivated us in such a manner that we got interested in both academics as well as music. In fact, music helps us rejuvenate and concentrate better in academics."

Do the brothers wish to devote their life to music? "We wish we could do nothing else but, unfortunately, in our country musicians do not have a secure future. The best of ustaads have died paupers. Name and fame come to only a few. So we think we should be in a safe profession that will give us our bread and butter. We will never leave music for it enriches the soul."

Kashish, who has already mastered 40 ragas and nearly 150 bandishein, says: "One life is not enough to pay our gratitude to Guru Pandit Yash Pal Ji and Prof Harwinder Singh, for what they imparted to us is immeasurable."

What does he think of youngsters around him? "Many of them are excelling in some field or the other. But, some of them perhaps lack guidance. When I hear or read about violent fights between some groups or rash driving by some youngsters, I feel sorry for them. These youngsters are missing out on the highest form of pleasure that comes from meaningful education or the learning of any art, be it music, painting or classical dancing.