PATIALA, INDIA, February 15,2004: Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia, the renowned musician, feels only government patronage will promise a secure and lucrative future for artistes in the performing arts and will encourage children to become musicians. At present, he feels, more and more classical artistes, are prefering to establish academies in the West than in India. Explaining his contribution to popularizing classical music among the youth, Pandit Chaurasia said “I have already established two gurukuls (schools) in Mumbai and San Francisco, which are based on the ancient “guru shishya parampara” (teacher-student tradition) and my vision is to establish a score of such schools all over the world.” A little known fact about Pandit Chaurasia is that he hails from a family of wrestlers and at 15, cut short his training in wrestling to take up first vocal classical music, then the flute. He is one of the few musicians who can adapt to both classical and popular music.
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