he is one of the promising young musicians in the carnatic music scene while the covid19 pandemic has been bad news for performing artistes he says that he has managed to keep himself busy ever since the lockdown and making the transition to digital effortlessly meet saketharaman who has been using the digital platform to take carnatic music to the masses introduce the art form to students and take his listeners on a virtual temple tour im a positive person and i look at challenges as opportunities carnatic music badly needed to go big on digital in a proper way and the lockdown sped up the process in a way begins saketh who was one of the few carnatic musicians to do a digital concert way back in early april my wife is a doctor so i knew covid19 is here to stay many were randomly uploading videos like facebook lives or recording videos on phones from their homes they were not doing justice to their coartistes i did this concert in a proper way with accompanying artistes hiring a studio and recording there he stateshe also began a series on youtube called crossover with saketh with plans to attract first timers to carnatic music there is a misconception that carnatic music is elitist too complex im actually demystifying all those showing them that whatever they hear on a daily basis is also carnatic music or has elements of it its just that there are nomenclatures and some people have used nomenclatures to alienate people listeners need not know the intricacies to listen to this music for example do people listen to the songs of ar rahman sir knowing the kind of beats or chord progression that he has used in them it is the melody and the rhythm that attract them similarly carnatic music also can be enjoyed at that level very much if the emotions touch your soul thats what matters and this is what im trying here he elaborateshe also began a project called kala siksha to make carnatic music part of the school curriculum carnatic music should be accessible to everyone theres still this impression that it is only for one community he criticises now he has 140 students learning carnatic music at his alma mater ps senior secondary schoolwe started this project in june with support from the schools management my goal is not that everybody should be a performer but that they all get a sense of classical music and our culture he says and talks about the process behind this venture i have hired five tutors carnatic musicians bhajan experts who take the classes virtually in batches of eight i act as a facilitator deciding the curriculum and overseeing the process he statespresently they are conducting one class per week per batch for students in class 2 to class 6 interestingly they use storytelling to ensure that children grasp the emotions behind a song quickly when we sing a keerthanai in telugu or