Notes from Far East

A small community of Koreans brings strains of Bach and Beethoven to the heart of bhangra country. And Mohali seems to be loving it

Sitting at the piano with her eyes on the notations, fingers flying on the keyboard and a foot on the pedal, Seerat Sidhu slowly floods the room with strains of Bach. At seven, she is the youngest student of a piano academy in Mohali. In bhangra country, that8217;s not a sound you8217;re used to hearing. And if arias and concertos are finding a place in this city8217;s musical vocabulary, it8217;s thanks to a cross-cultural exchange of a rare sort: the school is run by Jong Mun Oh, a South Korean businessman who came from Seoul and stayed back to spread the music.

8220;Call me Jagmohan,8221; he grins. That8217;s how the Punjabis insist on addressing him. It helps to have a wife called Kwi Suk Kang Kang is a pucca Punjabi surname and a daughter who8217;s become Sonia from Seon Ha. In 1996, Oh, then a visitor to India, stopped at Chandigarh on his way to Shimla and promptly fell in love with it. 8220;The wide avenues, the beautiful trees, the fragrant air8230; compared to Delhi it seemed divine,8221; he says. He returned to Seoul but the city continued to tug at his heart. And then he figured out a way to return8212;with a family. 8220;At that time, most well-heeled South Koreans were sending their children to Australia and New Zealand to learn English. I thought India would be a perfect destination.8221;

Though their four children soon took to schooling in Mohali, Kwi Suk Kang who had come here with a piano, was struck by the absence of classical music in their curriculum. 8220;I found even three-year-olds belting out film songs. There was no concept of songs for different occasions.8221;

A stray conversation with a school principal led to her getting involved in an annual day programme that had both students and parents in raptures. What started out as a tentative music mission with a heavy emphasis on piano soon turned into a full-time teaching assignment at the reputed Yadavindra Public School.

But Oh, who was ringing in steady profits by trading in musical instruments and handicraft 8212; he imports instrument from S Korea and exports handicraft from India 8212; had set his heart on a piano academy.

And since it started last January, Joyful Music Academy has been attracting an eclectic bunch of students8212;from a brother-sister pair to husband-wife and saas-bahu duos. For the four teachers of the school, it8217;s not easy to familiarise ears used to the peppy beats of bhangra to the languorous spell of classical music. 8220;Children here like to learn through their ears and don8217;t like to read the notes,8221; says Kwi Suk Kang. But the academy makes sure that students first pick up the music alphabet. 8220;Once they do that, they can play any piece, be it by Beethoven or Bach, with some practice,8221; says Kang.

Helen Kang, the lead pianist at the academy who is here to give the Mohali stamp of education to her two young daughters, is impressed with the wide array of students who come knocking .

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Dr Sanjay Saluja, a leading orthopaedician, and his wife Rashmi Saluja, head of the anaesthesia department at Fortis, decided to squeeze music into their tight schedules when their son went off to boarding school last year. 8220;The piano classes are a great stress-buster,8221; smiles Saluja. Six months into the lessons, the couple has even bought a piano. So has the saas-bahu pair of Uma and Mili Aggarwal. The newly-married Mili, who comes from Kanpur, calls the lessons a childhood dream come true. Romilla George, a gospel singer who was planning to enrol her children Aaron and Eden for piano classes at Delhi, calls the academy a 8220;godsend8221;. It is, if you happen to hear the two brats hit the high notes. These days, the class is high on Ode to Joy and For Lisa by Beethoven besides some waltz pieces.

It8217;s a tribe that shows all signs of prospering if Oh8217;s order books are any indication. He brought 16 pianos on demand in June and is now ready with another consignment of 17.
But wait. After tickling the ears, the South Koreans are also ready to tickle the palate. Aghast at the fake khimchi served at Chinese and Thai restaurants, Eun Kyung Park, a quiet little lady from Seoul, is seriously toying with the idea of a Korean noodle bar. But that is another story. Till then, play on.