Mahesh Kale shunned $ilicon Valley for Indian classical’s riches

Panaji: Mahesh Kale could have been a tech bro, but his spiritual software logged him out of the Silicon Valley aspiration and rolled out his artistic upgrade as an Indian classical musician. Today, when Kale presents an ‘Abhang’, the globe’s audiences sway between his two powers: heeding a composition’s holy incantations while fulfilling its ambition to be a purely musical masterwork.

Abhang, meaning ‘unhindered’ or ‘uninterrupted’, is a genre of odes to Lord Vitthal that are hallowed in Goa and Maharashtra, and across the universe of the devout.

Kale’s hindrances to his calling as a singer disintegrated in the US, where he pursued education in multimedia engineering at University of California, Santa Barbara. “Then I went to Santa Clara University, also in California, to earn a master’s in engineering management,” Kale told TOI.

But he feared that the Silicon Valley fertilised by billionaires to alter the future with algorithms would consume his real longing: to sing in an Indian tradition going back a thousand years.

However, his ‘profile’ — to use data jargon — did offer him an unexpected opportunity. “I was once a stand-in for someone who did not show up for a lecture-demonstration about Indian music at UC Santa Barbara,” Kale said. “Students and professors kept calling me back. Americans, Indian Americans, and Europeans attended these programmes.”

The drone of IT dollars was muted for Kale by then. Now he runs a music school in San Francisco and performs worldwide for adulating aficionados.

Indian classical music is a bit like ‘Ulysses’ by James Joyce. Most people on the planet with active cultural antennae have heard of our music and Joyce’s book — few have enjoyed their rewards. Why has the Hindustani and Carnatic heritage not given India the soft power that Hollywood confers on the US and Shakespeare on the UK?

After reflecting for several seconds, as though preparing for a solemn alaap, Kale suggested that Indians, including the diaspora, take an occasional leap away from the familiar Bollywood celeb indulgences. “Foreigners are not going to help us,” he said.

Welcoming all newcomers to the threshold of Indian classical music, he said, “It will be like Italian food. If your taste buds have been accustomed to only Indian masala, you will need time to get used to the new fare!”

Kale will perform on Dec 31 from 6pm at Ravindra Bhavan, Sanquelim.

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