Hyderabad, September, 02, 2018: Dharavai Reloaded, The Junk Percussion Band from Mumbai, took Rotarians by storm with their performance. All the 13 band members except it’s founder Abhijit Jejurikar is a slum dweller from the Asias’s biggest Slum Area in Mumbai, Dharavi
Slum Waster material like barrels, paint buckets, gloss and plastic water bottles are their musical instruments. They are not trained musicians. They don’t have costly musical instruments and set up. But, the music produce said all about them. The experience was life time. So much so that Rotarians dressed in blazers started dancing. Their spouses competed them in dancing.
They sang all patriotic songs and a peace song, Rukjare bande, ee khudrath has padega……
It was a great shock to many to see that how these waster material are used to produce such a great music. Some of the band members were rappers, singers and dancers. Abhijit Jejurikar himself is a multi musical instruments player and also sings.
Mrs and Mr. Gauri who sponsored their concert in the city, was so much inspired that they announced Rupees Ten Thousand each cash as incentives to their good performance. Another couple Deepak and Mansi Mangaokar couple also announced cash of rupees ten thousand each. The organizers announced that the money will be transferred to their accounts directly.
It is Amitabh Bachan’s favourite band. He enjoyed their performance. So also Salman Khan. They performed 200 shows so far. Soon they are planning to go international, informs, Abhijit Jejurikar, an event management professional by the day and a musician by the night. Abhijit founded this junk percussion band nine years ago to give slum children a platform.
Speaking at the performance on Sunday, the band made for Rotarians at their World Peace Conference—Sympony in the city, the curator Abhijit said when you engage kids in music, they don’t get involved in any anti social activities, drug traffic etc. Music is the medium I chose to transform the lives of slum children of Dharavi Slum in Mumbai. I have trained 60 children, but we have only 22 now , he sayd. The band is the entertainment with purpose says Abhijit Jejurikar, whose father is also a Rotarian and a former District Governor in Pune.
I am fond of music from my early child hood says Abhijit, 30 years a management student from Symbiosis. He roped back 60 children from drug trafficking into main stream life.
13 kids accompanied him for the performance in the city on Sunday. And most of them are muslims. They all travelled by train from Mumbai. Each musician carries his own barrel or bottle or bucket and sticks in their backpack. These band members include: Abdul Rehman, Faisal Shaikh, Sajid Shaikh, Salil Shaikh, Minhaz Shaikh, Saif Khan, Abdul Latif Khan, Zid Slamani, Imtiaz Shaikh, Nabi Ahmed, Absaur Shaik, Asif Mohammed.
Talking about the journey, Abhijit said, the biggest challenge was to convince their parents to send them to learn music. When I told them that we didn’t have to buy costly music instruments and we could generate music out of waste in the slum areas, they laughed. Almost all these kids were doing some errand jobs to fetch some money for the family. Family was not willing to send them first to school and then to make them learn music. We could overcome this hurdle with great difficulty, he explained.
Each band member get to earn Rs 4000/- from the performance. Which goes towards their education. Today two couples announced Rs 10,000/-each for all the 13 band members. It is a big amount for them said Abhijit. They started seeing life and cities only through their performances. They have travelled to Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata and all the major cities in the country informed Abhijit.
We practice twice a week and during weekends.
