Sharada Sangeet Vidyalay

At Fathima Nagar 14, there is usually some kind of music playing, though whether it sounds good depends on who is practicing that day. Sharada Sangeet Vidyalay has been a part of this neighborhood for quite a while. It’s a small place, and sometimes the sound of the tabla and the sitar all mix together in the hallway. We have a few rooms for lessons, and they’re mostly filled with instruments and old rugs for the students to sit on. The walls are covered with photos of famous musicians that are starting to yellow at the edges. It’s not a fancy conservatory with soundproof rooms. You can hear the kids laughing outside and the traffic from the main road. Sometimes the instruments go out of tune because of the humidity, and we spend the first ten minutes of every class just fixing that. The teachers here are just people who love music and want to pass it on to the next generation. We don’t have a big administration office. Most of the sign-ups happen on a notepad kept near the entrance. It’s a bit chaotic when classes are switching over and parents are waiting in the small doorway. But it’s a good kind of busy. It feels alive. We just want people to enjoy playing music without feeling too much pressure about it.