To Baldly Go… (The Mission of Getting Music into the Indian School Curricula)

The 350 Million Mission

India has an incredible musical heritage, but sadly, music education is often overlooked in schools here. This means missing out on music’s incredible ability to inspire creativity, build emotional strength, and connect kids with their cultural roots. Kids in many countries in Asia are taught to become doctors, lawyers, engineers and IT specialists – sciences. Fantastic! Let’s get the solutions to global infrastructure failures, environmental crises and to a failing human relationship with technology. But such ambitions need creative minds, not minds that are taught to copy books for daily homework and study for exams by rote memorisation.

Humans need creativity. Learning creative expression from an early age teaches creative problem solving, healthy forms of emotional expression and thought-abstraction, and most importantly, joy!

Take Delhi—of the 4.4 million children here, 80% don’t have access to music education. That’s over 3.5 million kids missing out on something that could change their lives. Apply that percentage to India’s 444 million kids and you’ve got 350 million students in dire need of a creative education! 350 million wonderful children.

I’ve always loved India. Been in love with this beautiful, ancient place and its people. So it’s time to raise my sights.

350 million is my mission.

For that I need the help of some locals…

Partnership Nahi, Parivar Hai! (Not A Partnership, It’s A Family)

In January, I registered my company, Will Adam Music, as a limited company, and came out to India as a music education consultant to partner up with an NGO (non-government organisation (in the UK, a ‘charity’)) called Manzil Mystics.

Manzil Mystics was born by marginalised young people in Delhi out of a desire to bring music to marginalised children across India – to give to kids from similar backgrounds what they couldn’t get in their schools. Their mission is to make sure every child in India has the chance to experience the life-changing power of music, especially those who need it most.

I encountered Manzil Mystics last year when I was in desperate need of a means of staying in the country via visa sponsorship. Anurag, the CEO, reached out with a message stating everything about the NGO, that they work in education, gender and livelihood, teaching marginalised kids to sing, write, record as well as learn about untaught vital issues like hygiene, menstruation, personal finances, study techniques, gender equality, confidence etc. When I visited them in April last year, they showed me that they were a joyful family of people passionate about change and building there own capacity to be greater leaders. They have won awards, been granted scholarships in the US, been named among the world’s top ten most scalable educational innovations, and had staff honoured by the UN. 

With their Learning Through Music program, they train young budding musicians to become facilitators, to go into schools and teach songs about the holistic life skills mentioned above, and to create happy, inclusive spaces for children to express and discuss. They have so far brought 324+ workshops to 19,000+ students.

In 2021, Manzil Mystics, in partnership with the government, launched India’s very first mobile recording studio. practice space, performance stage and classroom. It’s an all-in-one bus that Manzil Mystics take from school to school, village to village, as an incredible tool for teaching holistic life skills. Now we are able to reach the most rural places and teach girls and young women about menstrual hygiene, we can go to schools and give kids from economically marginalised areas opportunities to write and record their own songs. It’s an amazing accomplishment for this team of people who have themselves, come from marginalised backgrounds.

Manzil Mystics’ gender program is called WeBhor (meaning ‘we rise together’), and is run by Reshma, with whom I like to share an office. The WeBhor project sends staff and fellows into schools where they teach gender-specific issues to girls and young women using music. Songs like ‘Rani’ talk about a queen who makes her journey from the ovaries through the fallopian tube every month. It demystifies menstruation for girls – most of whom have no idea what is happening to them (there are many cases in India of girls who have self-harmed and died by suicide because no-one told them about menstruation and they became overwhelmed with fear. Through partnerships we are able to give out free reusable pads, teach girls how to use them and how to not be afraid of who they are or what is happening to their bodies. WeBhor project has received awards for innovation in education. They deserve it!

The Sky is Falling

2023 was a year that brought me to my knees, but I came back to India revitalised and focused on Will Adam Music Ltd and my vision for the future. It’s not been plain sailing.

It took a month to find a suitable apartment, and even though it’s a lovely place with a good landlord, the upstairs tenant is a music producer who blazes his music through speakers, causing the walls to vibrate. I’ve been stalked by threatening men in the building complex. My music production hard-drive has broken. Apple took my laptop for repair and broke the screen (they’re denying responsibility because I took it out of the shop before checking it). My phone is literally falling apart (I have to hold the screen on if the phone is not facing up). My roof has fallen down twice – once in April, over my bed (thankfully I was away at the time) – and once yesterday – the concrete for the whole kitchen ceiling collapsed. If I was cooking, it would have been my last meal. The upstairs tenant failed to clean the drains, leading to water-logging and months of seepage. 

Craziest of all, my bank contacted me to say my visa isn’t valid and they would freeze my account after 30 days unless I supply a 182+ day visa. My visa is 180 days unless I register it after the 180 days, then it becomes a valid visa. I registered the visa on day 181 (15th July) and the bank froze my account (after 13 days, not 30), cutting me off from all my money. I’ve been waiting for the visa certificate from the government since then, but their services are incredibly slow (it should be 5-7 days but it’s been 49).

So in those 49 days I’ve had no money, a laptop with no screen, a phone I have to hold together, no means of producing music, a noisy neighbour who can produce music, a roof that could fall down at any minute, and no visa. I’ve cut myself down to 2 meals per day of the cheapest vegetables and pulses, stopped travelling to the office and stopped socialising (it really does require money). But I still have one thing – the mission. Get music into schools. Get music into the lives of kids in this wonderful country. That’s what drives me and gives me joy.

Never Alone

In big cities like Delhi and London, it’s so easy to feel alone, despite people’s best attempts to make me feel otherwise. Sometimes all I need is a hug. Seriously, 49 days cooped up with nothing but facetime, is damaging to our fragile humanity. 

I wouldn’t be making it through without my friends – Abhinay, Tanvi, Lokesh, and of course my mum. They have loaned me money, gotten me cash for my rent, sent food and done so many practical things to remind me I’m not alone. When my roof collapsed yesterday, one of the boys from the children’s home in Goa sent me hot food for dinner. Think about that. Of all the rich people in this world, someone from a marginalised background with a minimum wage sent me food. Another boy from BLC is insisting on sending me money. These two are richer than anyone else I know. 

Please do consider donating to my work here in India. If you are currently a donor – you’re a part of the 350 Million Mission, bringing education, livelihood options, joy and music to the hundreds of millions of young people in India. Thank you!