“When I was in college, a few of us joined together and started a western music band in the year 1969 because Western music was a craze those days. We named it Blue Ricks and I was the drummer. My brother who was a guitarist in the band left for Canada and so I started a new band called ‘Frustrations Amalgamated’ and we successfully ran it for five years even winning awards at national level competitions. Slowly general interest in western music began to fade away and simultaneously a musical tsunami called ‘Ilayaraja’ pleasantly hit the people of Tamil Nadu and tamil film music started gaining popularity. I started a light music troupe and interestingly called it ‘Abaswaram’ presenting tamil and hindi film songs and I continued as the drummer for this troupe.”
Ramjhi inaugurated the troupe on the 1st of April (Fool’s day) in 1976 and the troupe carried a logo with a donkey on it. All those who came for the inaugural show were given cotton for keeping in the ears and even aspirin and saridon were distributed in the interval. The compering was done in Tamil in a humorous style. These off-beat aspects were well received by the media and ‘Abaswaram’ launched itself to travel all over the world presenting light music concerts. Even magazines ran columns on ‘Jokes told in Abaswaram Ramjhi’s concerts’. The name ‘Abaswaram’ stuck to him. It was a runaway success till Ramjhi decided to wind it up in the year 1999.
Ramjhi had a short stint with Raj TV heading their program division. Then he took up an innovative task – creating a professional music troupe of children. He started unearthing talent from various city schools and formed the first group with 14 singers in the year 2000. The inaugural concert itself became a sensation with a 1400 strong audience at the Chennai Music Academy and it was also telecast by Sun TV. ‘Issai Mazhalai’ as he named it, has now performed all over India and in many places across the globe. This led to Ramjhi starting music schools where formal training in Carnatic music is being imparted and now there are kids singing classical carnatic concerts also. December music season 2006 had Issai Mazhalai performing 117 concerts in the span of 30 days. They have the credit of performing in front of our Hon’ble President, Dr. Abdul Kalaam.
Ramjhi spoke about the challenges surmounted by him, “Initially, people were reluctant to print our name ‘Ahaswaram’ in wedding invitations. Slowly after understanding that only our name was Ahaswaram but we gave quality music, people started accepting us. I managed to remove the stigma attached to the negative name. Once again I challenged myself to create a professional music troupe with only children. Talent had to be sought and then the children trained to sing light music. A R Rahman was the first to try out children voices for the movie ‘lagaan’ and today we receive invitations from all over the country for any child voice that is needed. We have a brand name as our children are doing exceedingly well. Children are also encouraged and receive adequate support from their parents and school authorities because all these talented children seem to be naturally brilliant, academically also.”
Ramjhi has produced 4000 episodes on Satellite TV’s. He has anchored several Doordarshan shows from the day it was launched in Chennai in the year 1975. He used to play cricket as a hobby. A catering graduate by education, Ramjhi who has never had any formal training in music has made a mark for himself. As we are reading this issue, Issai Mazhalai children are flying across the seas to perform in the Thyagaraja Aradhana festival in Cleaveland, U.S.A because Ramjhi is today happy devoting full time just creating children, ably supported by his wife Shoba. He is striving with excitement to register his stamp of class through the culture he is passing down and is very confident that the future of light and carnatic music in this country lies in the safe hands of his ‘Issai Mazhalai’ children.
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