‘Hamara Music Group’

…musical Dutch Indians!

About HMG:

Hamara Music Group (HMG) is a consortium of passionate music lovers (including, Amateur and Trained singers) from Indian subcontinent (ISC) and based out of Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Many Indian languages like Hindi, Kannada, Bangla, Marathi, Tamil and many more find their way into these highly collaborative Group renditions.

HMGwasinitiated in the Januarymonth of the year 2018 with few tremendously self-motivated professionals. As it is said,

‘मैंअकेलाहीचलाथाजानिब-ए-मंज़िलमगर, लोगसाथआतेगएऔरकारवाँबनतागया’

(‘I started all alone towards my destination; during the journey, people joined and it became a Convoy’)

HMG grew and now it has 100+ Active members and growing by the months.Deriving pleasure through Music, while giving respect to the fellow artists, learning from each other and growing together are some of the key core values that drives HMG.

HMG can be experienced at https://www.facebook.com/groups/526574007786869/ and YouTube Videos can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFbmjeBKpEZ05YbqwZUVO6Q

HMG creation:

It was an interesting moment in the year 2017, when the seed to this concept of having a Musical Group created was rooted,with few of the current HMG members meeting twice in a month over the weekends at different residential homes. Few of the HMG members gathered to sing and collaborate on songs, which used to give great joy and happiness to all of them. It also gave them a boost to start the week ahead with equal amount of confidence and pride.People may call it a ‘serendipity’, but within weekends of meeting at each other’s place, HMG came into existence.

HMG’s founders, Dr. Mohan Hariharan, who has been a practicing Doctor since last 25+ years in Netherlands, specializing in Emergency services and Elderly Healthcare and Santosh Zope, is an Engineer based in Netherlands and extremely passionate singer by heart. He has special interest in culture, languages, dramas and writing humorous scripts for short skits.

Both actively support and inspire the HMG for all the related musical activities.

HMG Organization

HMG Organization members who strategize, plan and ensure execution of the HMG events and activities are Dr. Mohan Hariharan, Santosh Zope, UshaGayathrie, and Mahesh Pandey.

Mahesh Pandey, an IT Professional and a Management graduate is a published author of five Books and ex-Journalist (Zee News) based out of Eindhoven (The Netherlands) and contributes towards HMG’s musical endeavors and initiatives. Other than rendering non-contemporary songs and ghazals, Mahesh also pens Hindi/English poems and Urdu ‘shaayari’. He is an ardent member of HMG as it is one of the few groups abroad that is not based on any other classification, but being an Indian.

HMG Distinguished Members:

Several of the HMG members have excelled in thefield of musical and have been the harbinger of the music dissemination.

• Mrs. Lipika is Visharad in Kathak dance, Hindustani vocal classical & instrument (guitar) and has a diploma in Creative Dance. She obtained many titles a.o.Nrityashree, Geetashree&Badyashree in three streams of music. She has been active artists for decades on All India Radio and Kolkata Doordarshan. Currently, she is a European Representative of “All India Music & Cultural Council”.
• Mrs. Indira Ramesh, a Carnatic Music graduate from the University of Mysore(India), is a versatile classical singer who can render classical vocal performances even without any musical instrument being played around.
• Mrs. UshaGayathrie,is a classically trained singer in Hindustani music. Her style of singing is KiranaGharana. Her Gurus are Pandit Anant Hegde, who is a disciple of Pandit Rajan Sajan and Pandit Omkar Havaldar, a very accomplished international classical vocalist. Pandit Omkar comes from a very well-known musical family and has been trained under PanditBhimsen Joshi. Usha performs classical music and light music, in addition to teaching music to future music bloomers. She has more than 28000 songs recorded on Smule.
• Mr. Rajesh Kathuriahasbeen a trained Indian classical musician and singer. Rajesh has undergone 2 years of Prabhakar in Hindustani music under guidance of his guru Late Dr. MC Madan. Rajesh has been part of school music group, which have won district competitions. He has been performing regularly in Community Programs as member of Live orchestra group in Pune.
• Mrs. Pragati Singh has been on the Top Trending list of the European chapter of Smule singers. She is extremely versatile in singing and also has been a contestant in the number of competitions, including Sony TV’s Indian Idol. She has more than 6000 songs recorded on Smule.
• Mr. Lalit Mohan, who has been in company of by Pandit Shivnath and Amarnath from Benarasgharana plays Guitar, composes music and sings them too.
• New generation classical singers, SaloniKathuria, is learning classical music from her Guru, Monika Kakade, and has completed PraveshikaPratham and Purna certification (Indian classical vocals) under her guidance. She has performed in Swararohi, which is Indian classical performing platform in Pune. She has also performed in community festivals like Ganesha festivals, Basantutsav etc.

Additionally, HMG is also endowed withfantastic instrumentalists like Lipika Bhattacharya (Harmonium, Guitar and few others), SoumenNanda (Tabla), Saurav Kumar Baidya (Cajon), Rajesh Kathuria (Keyboard) and Lalit Mohan (Guitar)

Mr. Ram Iyer and KS Ramesh, two of the eldest and the most inspiring members of HMG renderhundreds of songs per week on Smule.Ram Iyeralone has more than 14,000 songs recorded on Smule.

One of our member, DulalTalukder, represents the Indian sub-continent nation of Bangladesh, bringing musical flavor of that part of the world to HMG.

HMG activities:

Though HMG started locally in Eindhoven, it has grown to have its presence internationally now with members from seven different countries like USA, Indonesia, Kenya, Qatar, etc.

HMG has a Facebook page of its own containing photos and videos of our contributions towards the field of Music. HMGhas recently created their own YouTube Video channel that is in the process of being updated with the Videos. Since the HMG members are a part of HMG voluntarily, as most of themare working professionals still they try to keep up the pace on almost daily basis through theirWhatsApp Group, posting their songs and getting feedback from the other members of the Group.

Smule is a social singing app and all the HMG members sing and collaborate through it. Here HMG has a Smule International Group, wherein they have HMG Eindhoven and International Singers joining and collaborating on the multilingual melodies.

HMG has been regularly contributing via Videos and Stage Shows on the request from Gandhi Centre, the Cultural wing of Indian Embassy in Netherlands.In the recent past, the HMG Team performed on the stage (Republic Day2020) in Gandhi Centre, Den Haag (The Netherlands); shared a performed video on the song, ‘एकलाचलोरे’ on the event of RabindraNath Tagore Anniversary and another on the occasion of Independence Day to the Gandhi Centre. The ‘एकलाचलोरे’ song was played during the event and finds a place on the Gandhi Centre Facebook page.

As a matter of pride, recently, two of the HMG Members received special recognition from the Gandhi Centre, the cultural wing of Indian Embassy (ICCR) for their contribution towards Indian Art and Culture!

HMG Artists can be found practicing once in a month in the Community Hall at Stichting ‘tTrefpunt, Belgiëplein 20, 5628XJ Eindhoven, Noord-Brabant (The Netherlands). Formally started with its first session at Stichting ‘tTrefpunt Community hall) on 21st January 2018, HMG celebrated its first anniversary at Ram Mandir at Wijchen.

As a continued effort towards upholding Indian values and ethos, HMG is now trying to integrate Surinami singers and is in the process of forming a Bhajan group alongwith them. As we know, we have an extremely broad Surinamese community of 200,000+ people in Netherlands.

Covid challenge:

As we cannot ignore the fact that the entire world is getting tremendously impacted due to Covid. HMG is no exception andthey stopped meeting due to Covid restrictions. To stay connected and to continue serving the cause of the Music, the HMG organized Smule Live Jam sessions to continue collaborating. International singers were also invited and they rendered their songs across the globe.

As a part of SmuleTDK Challenge (organized to stay connected during Corona), HMG Members contributed their videos and wished health and life to the entire world population.

Since some restrictions are now lifted, HMG resumes the Monthly connect in the Community Hall.

HMG NRI members upholding and transferring Indian values and ethos:

It is amazing how much versatility HMG brings. On one hand, HMG has accomplished trained singers and on the other, it has artists who can play musical instruments too in addition to rendering songs.

HMG has a wide spectrum of professionals contributing towards music. It has medical doctors, IT Professionals, Music Teachers, Healthcare industry professionals, Homemakers, University Professors, and even Retired professionals.

There is a plan to include the upcoming generations (children of the HMG Members) into HMG and surprisingly, more and more offsprings are coming ahead and contributing. This is to impart the Indian Values and Ethos unpolluted from one generation to the next generation. Increasingly, HMG is also getting interests from the spouses and siblings of the HMG members who with their versatile artistic skills don the space.

Though it is impossible to have all the skills of all the HMG Members listed, HMG has the many exemplary members who are always looking for something creative and want to lead the group towards immense success and excellence. Currently, HMG is busy with creating a feature with the concept of ‘Global Indian’ in mind.

Overall, HMG aims to bring the world closer through Music and create a Global space to collaborate with the fellow musicians and artists. The journey has just started and HMG has a way to go, as HMG’s future vision is to integrate all the forms of Music, like Jazz, Rock, Classical, etc. and create a platform to bring all the forms of Music together.