France-based NRI music therapist wants people to make environment their first priority

“We need to save our rivers as our state’s name, too, means the land of five rivers. I am concerned about Punjab looking at the exploitation of our river bodies… I want to develop artistic and environmental science projects to make people understand the importance of the environment for all of us. I am reaching out to school children along river Beas and I am trying to help them understand their ecological heritage which can even create new green jobs,” Sandhu said.

He added that “the river system needs to be converted into the wonderful space it was before the green revolution. The river dolphin needs to be saved. If the river dolphin – bulan – lives, we will make it too.”

He said that after completing his MBBS in 2006, he studied ayurveda, naturopathy, meditation, and yoga at Sooryayog Foundation in Kerala from 2007 to 2011. He also studied Dhrupad under Ustad Asad Ali Khan from 2009-2011.

“In the middle of the ’90s, I saw vultures and sparrows disappearing from the skies. Cancer was spreading in families. I would hear that there is something wrong with the environment but nobody seemed to do anything to correct it. While doing MBBS, I was introduced to yoga thanks to the work of Dr Bijlani, a professor of physiology who spent many years researching this difficult subject. “His passion helped many of us to combine the East and the West in our lives,” he said, adding that “yoga, naturopathy, ayurveda, and natural farming helped me to reconnect with the Earth and understand the problems being faced. In 2010, I went back to Punjab and started spending time at Harike wetlands and River Beas which passes through my district Tarn Taran… Here, I had an amazing encounter with river dolphins. It shocked me that I grew up and went to a top medical school and it took me 30 years to see them. I realised that our education model is flawed and is building a society that is not connected to the local ecology.”

He further said, “I framed a project for river dolphin conservation and education called Bhoomitra… and I started taking people and school children for trips to see the river dolphins. Though I shifted to France in 2013, I continuously visit India to promote this project.”

Rabbi Shergill, too, visited Beas along with his family during one of the trips arranged by Sandhu in 2012 and it inspired Sandhu to write a song titled ‘Bulanaji’. “A musician was born in the River Beas,” he added. He sang his composition and said that this song is often sung at environment-related events by like-minded people. In France, he is teaching a new way of medicine combining dhrupad singing and ayurveda. He also sells Indian tribal art paintings.

Coming back to the river dolphin project, he said: “The biggest challenge to river dolphin conservation is to address the agricultural and industrial model of development. Chemical agriculture uses too much water and puts too many chemicals into the soil. Since 2011, I have been engaged with organic farming movements in Punjab and India, urging for change.”

Many like-minded people have joined Bhoomitra from India, he said. The idea of Bhoomitra is to promote ecological well-being using music and arts and move towards sustainable agriculture, he added.