BENGALURU: People have continually asked me what I was feeling when I went on stage to receive the Grammy. I’ve never said this before, but I was thinking of this one photograph that John [Mclaughlin] ji had shown a while back. It was taken in the ’80s. John ji, Shankar [Mahadevan] ji, Zakir [Hussain] bhai, and my dad [Vikku Vinayakram] are sitting together, with me standing behind them in my school uniform, holding a soda!” shares percussionist V Selvaganesh, adding, “Back then, I could never have imagined that I would one day play with these legendary musicians, be a co-producer for an album, and win a Grammy. It’s a dream come true.”A member of the iconic band Remember Shakti, for Selvaganesh, his recent Grammy win for the album This Moment, was a culmination of a journey intertwined with family legacy and his own commitment to elevating a humble instrument. Born into a musical dynasty, the 52-year-old was exposed to Carnatic music from a very young age.“My grandfather [TR Harihara Sarma] was a percussionist, followed by my father and then myself. When I was four or five months old, my grandfather would apparently keep me in his lap and teach his students,” he says. Selvaganesh’s path, however, wasn’t set in stone: “I initially aspired to be a mridangam player,” he reveals. “But my grandfather suggested taking up the kanjira, which, back then, was seen as a secondary instrument. He said, ‘Take up this instrument (kanjira) because we don’t have many people who play it. Someone needs to keep it alive, and I believe our family should do it,” he recalls.
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