MUSIC SPECIAL.............. If music be the food for work, then play on

 If music be the food for work, then play on 

Some of India Inc’s top guns recharge batteries by learning music and performing at weekend gigs where they are the stars

Every couple of months, a mix of amateur musicians get together at a modest midtown Mumbai auditorium for a no-holds-barred jam session with keyboards and synthesisers. Watching them with an eagle eye is their teacher, Sanket Bontal (Sanket Sir for all).
Bontal, in his late 30s, gives home tuitions to each of these professionals, and even teaches some of them through Skype.
Nothing unusual, except that the group, which meets occasionally on weekends, boasts some of the top brass of India’s corporate sector. There is also a sprinkling of doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs — many with a family — looking for a break from work.
Nitin Paranjpe, earlier CEO & MD of
Hindustan Unilever, and now president of the home care business of Unilever, also learns music from Bontal. Music, most of them say, has been their childhood passion or dream and helps destress them.
“They are students keen on learning music. Most of them have come from middle class backgro unds and worked hard in life . Music keeps their learning alive and I am impressed with their dedication,” says Bontal.
CY Pal, ex-chairman of Cadbury, too, is Bontal’s student. Others include Ashok Venkatramani of Star News, Jaydeep Gupta of StanChart, who learns from Dubai on Skype and Alok Agarwal, executive director of ICICI Lombard. Damodar Mall, CEO, Reliance Value Retail, is the other consumer marketer at the gig.
Says Pal: “I am not a passionate student of music. I’m in it for pleasure and fun. I have a digital piano and the sessions with Sanket where we sing Hindi songs are a great source of relaxation.” Agarwal says that music is a passion with him and since he could not pursue it in the initial years, he does so now actively.
Some of Bontal’s former Skype students include Hong Kong-based Mukul Deoras, Asia-Pacific president of Colgate Palmolive, Shripad Nadkarni, former Coke honcho turned consultant, and cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle’s wife, Anita.
Mall says he began his keyboard classes after being advised to take up music as a therapy to improve mindbody coordination after an illness in 2010. “Music indeed became a therapy. It is now an integral part of my life,” says Mall.
Says Bhogle, who has set up a digital learning content library: “The whole idea is to have non-competitive fun. But there is an official concert twice a year.”
Another member of the band baja, as the group is fondly dubbed by its members, says they do not pressure themselves with technicalities like sur and tal. “We take a Bollywood song and attempt that on the keyboard; it is these small learning milestones that are the most enjoyable,” says the executive.
Sanjay Jog, HR head, Reliance Retail, says he approached Bontal after hearing about him from Mall. “It is about just learning something new at this stage. It is amazing how one feels like a student knowing nothing at a stage in life when one tends to be self-assured.”
Occasionally, the group meets at each other’s homes over a fun-filled evening of Bollywood music.
b y KALA VIJAYRAGHAVAN ETP140418