A question of passion

Making a living as a Carnatic musician can be challenging, as you don’t earn much until you become a top-ranking musician,” an upcoming Carnatic vocalist had recently said. But can one become a top-ranking musician even while pursuing a corporate career? Many have tried balancing the two; a few have succeeded in excelling in both by managing their time optimally.   

“Two successful careers are possible,” says H K Venkatram, a well-known violinist from Bengaluru. He should know since he also rose to become a senior director at an MNC.

HKV started his training under his father, H V Krishnamurthy, who was an accomplished violinist and also a professor of Zoology. HKV recalls that his father would travel to Mysuru to teach at a medical college. He would then come back to Bengaluru and conduct violin classes late into the evening. HKV saw a very busy man in his father and thought that life was meant to be like that for all. Prioritising time to be able to pursue academics along with music, and later to pursue two careers, is a skill he learnt from his father.

With his soft, fluent style, HKV is a highly sought-after violinist. He has accompanied top-ranking musicians such as Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, M Balamuralikrishna, M L  Vasanthakumari and others. He has received many awards, including the prestigious Sangeet Natak Academy award in 2023.  “I was equally passionate about both my job involving work on microprocessors, and music. I decided that I would put in extra hours to do well in both. I did not know how, but I decided to do it,” he says. There were times when he had to leave work at 5 pm, perform at an evening concert and get back to the office after 10 pm to catch up on his work late into the night. These are stoic efforts that only someone who is ardently committed to both careers can put in. Living in a city like Bengaluru, which offered opportunities for both careers, certainly helped. Sometimes, even with zealous efforts to follow two careers, circumstances may lead to prioritising one over the other. Ashwin Anand is a vainika based in Toronto, Canada. An electronic engineer, he moved to Canada from Bengaluru a few years ago to take up a job at an MNC. 

As a vainika, Ashwin has established himself as an artiste who plays the instrument with easy grace. In 2017, he won the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar from the Sangeet Natak Akademi. A corporate career may have taken precedence in his case, especially since not being in India means far fewer concerts. In his view, “removing financial dependence on music may help shape your art. You can create music on your own terms and explore more. I never looked at music as a career option. It has always been a pursuit of passion.”

Apart from time management, it is also important to isolate one career from the other. This is something HKV learnt early in his career as an accompanist.

“I was to accompany a very senior and popular Vidwan of those times, at a concert in Kolkata in 1988. Before the concert, I was introduced to him as a highly qualified engineer who plays the violin. He gave me a cold stare as if to say that my other qualifications did not matter and said he would like to see how I fared on the stage.”

That was a defining moment for HKV, who, since then, has taken extra care not to let one career intrude on the other. “My prowess on the violin did not matter one bit for the firm I was a part of, and what I was there did not matter when I was on the stage.”

However, there is a lot of learning that one can bring to bear from one career to the other. “I owe my concentration and listening skills to music. From the corporate world, I have inculcated greater discipline and the ability to focus on achieving results,” says HKV.

“In both music and corporate careers, one commonality is that you should be constantly seeking to learn,” says Rakshita Ramesh, who is an AIR A Grade veena artiste and currently works as an analyst at a large MNC. She joined the firm through campus placements just three-and-a-half years ago. At a very young age, she has already won several awards, including Best Veena Artiste (Junior) from the Music Academy, Chennai in 2022 and 23.

Rakshita admits that she is now at a crossroads and is mulling over taking up music full-time. When asked what factors she would weigh, she was candid.

“Playing the veena gives me more satisfaction than what I get out of my job on most days. Having invested time and energy into pursuing music, letting go now will not be meaningful. I’m also grateful to have family backing that will enable me to sustain myself if my earnings through music take time to flow in. If I were to choose one career over the other, it may well be music.”

Straddling two careers is, in short, possible. The most critical factors are how passionate you are about both careers and what your goals are.