Indian classical: The anchor in a migrant’s journey

Few would have heard of Jay Visvadeva outside Indian arts circles, but mention him to any musician of note in the Indian sub-continent or Britain, and you immediately connect.

It can rank as one of the incredible migrant journeys: born in one culture, growing up in a different continent, uprooted from there and arriving in another continent as a teenager, learning about the original culture in a foreign land and going on to promote Indian classical music over 50 years while interacting with legends and others.

Few would have heard of Jay Visvadeva outside Indian arts circles, but mention him to any musician of note in the Indian sub-continent or Britain, and you immediately connect. Born in a Gujarati family in Kenya, he arrived in London as a teenager in May 1970, when Asians were being expelled from east Africa. Today, sitting in his small office in Ealing, Visvadeva is surrounded by books and thousands of hours of recordings of over 1,780 events he organised over the decades in London and across Britain, featuring every major performer from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and elsewhere.

He recalls: “I was interested in devotional music while in Kenya, but the main thrust into Indian art and music began in London. I was a run-around lad, making chai, during the Sanskritik Festival of Arts of India in the Southbank Centre in 1970, when I met Ravi Shankar and George Harrison. I felt I had found something. That exposure was God-sent; we didn’t have such level of events in Africa. It was all fascinating, listening to Ali Akbar Khan, Nikhil Banerjee — it created a melting pot.”

Visvadeva remembers listening enraptured to Girija Devi, but was not familiar with the Purabi-Awadhi words she used; so he set about learning written and spoken Hindi and later contributed to BBC Hindi and Voice of America. It was a time when India and aspects of Indian culture were gradually becoming popular in Britain, with increasing attendance at classical music concerts. Several individuals influenced and helped him in the journey, including radio producer and ethnomusicologist Deben Bhattacharya, philosopher J Krishnamurti and priest Pandit Vishnu Narayan. While evolving his arts oeuvre, Visvadeva read Law at London University and specialised in intellectual property law that he later used to help musicians.