Indian Classical Violinist Arista Katwaroo playing her strings for a brighter future

Arista Kat­wa­roo start­ed learn­ing mu­sic at the ten­der age of five at the Bharatiya Vidya Sansth­haan (BVS) found­ed by Sangee­taachaarya Ma­hakavi Pro­fes­sor Hari Shankar Adesh. She is an ini­ti­at­ed dis­ci­ple of Pro­fes­sor Adeshji.

The 21-year-old, third-year stu­dent of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies is pur­su­ing a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence (Dou­ble Ma­jor) in Ge­og­ra­phy and En­vi­ron­men­tal Nat­ur­al Re­source Man­age­ment.

Arista re­cent­ly at­tained the Sangeet Kalanid­hi (Bach­e­lor’s De­gree) in In­di­an Clas­si­cal Mu­sic where she ob­tained a Gold medal for Vi­o­lin and a Sil­ver Medal for Vo­cals at BVS. Her tal­ents and skills have al­so giv­en her the op­por­tu­ni­ty to teach vi­o­lin, har­mo­ni­um, tabla and vo­cals at BVS. Arista has per­formed for many events such as the Dhar­ma­chaarya’s in­au­gu­ra­tion and has tak­en part in many com­pe­ti­tions in Trinidad such as the San­skri­tik Sangam where she placed first in the vo­cal cat­e­go­ry, sec­ond in the in­stru­men­tal cat­e­go­ry and was giv­en the ‘All Rounder’ award in 2012.

In 2018, the young mu­si­cian and vo­cal­ist was ho­n­oured by Shri Shiv­an­nand Ma­haraj as a promi­nent vi­o­lin artiste of Trinidad and To­ba­go. In ad­di­tion to be­ing an all-rounder, she has been play­ing vol­ley­ball for nine years, show­ing true prowess in bal­anc­ing her mu­sic, sport and ed­u­ca­tion all at the same time. Arista shared her sto­ry with the WE Mag team, here’s what she had to say:

What was the biggest chal­lenge you had to over­come and how did you deal with it?

My biggest chal­lenge has been bal­anc­ing my mu­sic, aca­d­e­m­ic life and per­son­al life all while teach­ing mu­sic. A lot of peo­ple have asked me how I man­age and my re­sponse is al­ways that it takes a lot of com­mit­ment, ded­i­ca­tion and most of all, pa­tience. With all of this, noth­ing can stop one from achiev­ing what one wants. It has been very tire­some as I am ei­ther packed with school as­sign­ments or per­form­ing mu­sic or both, but I have learnt that time is valu­able and must nev­er be wast­ed so I prac­tice time man­age­ment and sched­ule a time for study­ing and prac­tic­ing mu­sic. Most im­por­tant­ly, I en­sure that I eat prop­er­ly and get enough sleep.

What are you work­ing on at present, what is keep­ing you ex­cit­ed?

- Be­ing a fi­nal year stu­dent at UWI. I am very ex­cit­ed about at­tain­ing my BSc in Ge­og­ra­phy and En­vi­ron­men­tal Nat­ur­al Re­source Man­age­ment.

-Be­ing a vi­o­lin­ist as well as a lover of mu­sic and oth­er var­i­ous in­stru­ments. I am al­ways en­thu­si­as­tic to learn new tech­niques and com­po­si­tions from my Sadgu­ru, Pro­fes­sor Adeshji.

- Be­ing a mu­sic teacher. I am al­ways ex­cit­ed about spread­ing my love for mu­sic to my stu­dents and en­sur­ing that they get the best treat­ment.

- I am most fas­ci­nat­ed and in­trigued by the Sangeet Sind­hu course which is the mas­ter’s lev­el mu­sic course spear­head­ed and found­ed by my Sadgu­ru Pro­fes­sor Adeshji.

- I am fo­cused on self-im­prove­ment in a holis­tic man­ner - emo­tion­al­ly, men­tal­ly and spir­i­tu­al­ly.

What is your ul­ti­mate goal or biggest dream for your fu­ture?

One of my biggest dream is to be­come an ac­com­plished In­di­an Clas­si­cal Artiste in Vi­o­lin and vo­cal mu­sic. I want to be able to per­form all over the world es­pe­cial­ly in In­dia and to be able to car­ry on and spread the knowl­edge of my Sadgu­ru, Pro­fes­sor Adeshji and his work. My main goal, how­ev­er, is to be­come very suc­cess­ful in life and to make my par­ents proud.

Tell us some­thing about you that peo­ple may not know.

I have a love for Eng­lish clas­si­cal mu­sic and would like to learn to play this on the pi­ano.

What are you most grate­ful for?

I am most grate­ful for my Sadgu­ru, Pro­fes­sor Hari Shankar Adesh and my Gu­ru­maataa­ji, Dr Nir­mala Adesh for their bless­ings and teach­ings in var­i­ous as­pects of my life. I owe all of my mu­si­cal achieve­ments as well as per­son­al achieve­ments to my Sadgu­ru, Pro­fes­sor Adeshji. He is the shin­ing light in my life and I love him im­mense­ly. Heart­felt thanks to my par­ents, es­pe­cial­ly my moth­er for mak­ing the var­i­ous sac­ri­fices to car­ry me to these dif­fer­ent class­es where I learnt and ex­plored these as­pects of my life. I am al­so ap­pre­cia­tive of my aunt and broth­er for their love and sup­port. A spe­cial men­tion to my fa­ther for be­ing one of my biggest fans. I am al­so thank­ful to the var­i­ous teach­ers of BVS for their in­put in my life. Last by not least, I would like to thank Bhag­van (God) for every­thing he has giv­en me and done for me in my life as he was there for me dur­ing the hap­pi­est and tough­est mo­ments of my life and has shown me the path to suc­cess. He taught me to nev­er give up when things get tough.

Do you have any ad­vice for oth­er women who may want to do what you do?

Al­ways be hum­ble. Be­lieve and have con­fi­dence in your­self. Nev­er give up on your dreams and as­pi­ra­tions. Be strong men­tal­ly and don’t feel ashamed of be­ing dif­fer­ent. Stay true to your prin­ci­ples, morals and val­ues and try to be a good, sin­cere per­son. Nev­er give up or stop pray­ing to Bhag­van (God) as he will nev­er give up on you. Re­mem­ber that he has every­thing planned out for you when the time is right, so al­ways be pa­tient and live life to the fullest and not be re­gret­ful. Al­ways try to help and mo­ti­vate oth­ers in do­ing what is right. One thing that my Sadgu­ru, Pro­fes­sor Adeshji al­ways says and has taught me is, “Yah Vish­wa Hee Pari­vaar Ho, Sab Ke Liye Sam Pyaar Ho!” “May the world/uni­verse be one no­ble fam­i­ly with equal love for all.”