Hold me now, touch me now
I don’t want to live without you
Nothing’s gonna change my love for you
You ought to know by now how much I love you
One thing you can be sure of
I’ll never ask for more than your love
Nothing’s gonna change my love for you
You ought to know by now how much I love you
The world may change my whole life through
But nothing’s gonna change my love for…
Nothing’s gonna change my love for you

*
Ritvik Rajan was born with total visual impairment and I would say that he was born with music.

He started singing at the age of one and a half, bollywood songs, and then probably I think he started speaking around nine to ten…at the age of nine to ten.

And then slowly we realized that he is also suffering from intellectual disability of some sorts, because, probably because he couldn’t make sense of many things happening around and his tactile sense was not very well developed.

*
Which song did you say we should sing together?

Ye raatein ye mausam

Okay, you will start the song?

Yes.

Come.

(Sings)

Ye ratein, ye mausam, nadi ka kinara, yeh chanchal hawa

humming

*
Now, as far as Ritvik was concerned, we couldn’t find a suitable school for him because those days there was no Right to Education, there was no integrated education, and there was no availability of net or anything.

So with Roshan, we also faced the same difficulty, but since he was the only child then, I put all my heart and soul into him and then got him into a normal school but with Ritvik it was difficult because he was not able to communicate with the outside world.

So, and he was very much interested in music, he used to sing songs if someone would ask him some questions and with that I realized that music can, you know, take a crucial part in his development.

So I put him on to music.

But his formal training started when he was about 10 years old and then later he went to do his…all the while it was only homeschooling because there were no schools which would admit him and where he would fit in, so it was only homeschooling.

He went on to do his Visharadh in Hindustani Classical and he secured about 78%. He won the Balakrishnan Madhushkar Award,. Then he did his Grade 5 in Western Vocal from Trinity College of London. Then, two years back he did his Grade 8 in Rock and Pop from Trinity College of London and everything was done at home only.

*

Please sing Gopala Shree Krishna…

(Children sing)

*

I had developed a unique method of teaching him because it was difficult to reach out to him because he wouldn’t know the language,
he doesn’t know the meanings, so I would simplify the lessons, I would record it in a cassette and you know, read each line two to three times and then I would intersperse it with some music which he likes.
So he gets glued to that and he would sit very committedly he would sit and learn it.

All the exams that he has done, he has secured more than 70 to 80%.

*
Music means melody and soothing-to-hear voice.

Do you think you have a soothing voice?

Yes, I have dynamics.

And you’ve gne outside the city of Bangalore?

Yes, I travelled to Dubai, Sharjah, Bangkok, then Ahmedabad.

Were you in Goa recently?

I participated in Purple Fest, Goa.

Why?

Because you were, you were, you were there.

Ah! You met me there, correct? You remember?

Yeah, I remember.

You remember! You remember I went and I met you. You sang so beautifully.

*
His musical journey has been something which is very very inspiring and now he has performed in over more than three thousand stages.

And I have taught him how to teach music by being a student myself and slowly he picked up learning to teach music and I’m proud to say that he was working at Delhi Public School, Bangalore North, as a music teacher for about six years.

Of course I used to go with him. So it was like, he was the music and I was the teacher, but we were a great success in our venture there.

But after the corona we didn’t go back to the school but he started teaching music at home, I think since 2012 or so.

And even now he is continuing online and offline classes and we have about 20 students coming in.

So, he is a real achiever, I can say.

Aane laga zingagi ka maza
Ye ratein, ye mausam, nadi ka kinara, yeh chanchal hawa
Sitaron ki mehfil nay karke ishara

humming

(Singing)