Seva through Music
In the heart of the City of Leicester, a venue that encapsulates the humdrum of the local community, the Belgrave Neighbourhood Centre will be putting on a concert with three local singers from three different generations.
It may look like just another concert, but this one stems from a businessman whose passion for community work means he spends considerable time advising local people on accessing local facilities to aid their life. Jay Rathod works as a businessman during the day and spends the rest of his hours advising on all kinds of social issues from benefits queries to disability issues. He still finds time to teach people to learn to sing or at least try it out as a way of social engagement.
“Music is my passion. I started to sing at the age of twelve and participated in many drama events in school, so for me it is a road to inner peace and at the same time a tool to do community service,” says Jay.
His family came from India to the UK in 1987. Stepping on the streets of Leicester is perhaps the closest to Indian culture with the aura of sights, smells and noises of an Indian city right in the heart of the Golden Mile. So Leicester became the ideal place to fulfil personal dreams combining arts, culture and seva.
“I want to give back to the community through my music. And this dream is not just for me, but all the people who work with me who have the same values,” added Jay. In particular, he has a keen interest on offering hope for the elderly whom he feels is much neglected in modern times. Loneliness and utter apathy toward our elderly is a sad feature of modern life, but something that needs to be addressed. He wants to do it through music and engage people together in order to fend off the ills of the elderly.
Jay with a talented young singer Jyotika and an eminent lady of music Umaji will be featuring their first community concert. Jay feels that there is a need for such an event in order to engage people of different generations. Jyotika has been working with Jay for the last four months on the project together with Umaji. Project managed by Rekha Patel, the group have set up Peacok, a community organisation to encourage local projects with strong emphasis on volunteerism. Its aim is to support the local artists and involve people of all ages, gender, faith and race to come together to support each other through their common interests.
Jay has been running a weekly singing class where people meet and try out their dreams of singing. It will be Jyotika and Umaji’s first public concert in front of a large audience.For further information, please go to www.peacok.org.
