Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Dr Kam­la Dhyani’s jour­ney is a pow­er­ful blend of pur­pose, pas­sion and per­se­ver­ance. Orig­i­nal­ly hail­ing from In­dia, Dr Dhyani’s work has tran­scend­ed bound­aries in the de­vel­op­ment and en­rich­ment of the per­form­ing arts both in T&T and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Born in­to a mod­est fam­i­ly in In­dia with three sis­ters and a broth­er, she grew up in a home where, al­though means were lim­it­ed, ed­u­ca­tion was cher­ished de­spite lim­it­ed aca­d­e­m­ic back­grounds—her fa­ther was ed­u­cat­ed on­ly up to Form Three, and her moth­er up to Form Five.

Still, they in­stilled in their chil­dren a deep re­spect for ed­u­ca­tion and learn­ing, and her par­ents en­cour­aged them to pur­sue aca­d­e­mics and de­vel­op their tal­ents. It was this de­ter­mi­na­tion from her par­ents that laid the foun­da­tion for Dr Dhyani’s re­mark­able jour­ney through mu­sic and acad­e­mia.

At just ten years old, Dr Dhyani was en­cour­aged by her fa­ther to be­gin for­mal mu­sic lessons af­ter he no­ticed her nat­ur­al tal­ent. Singing at home was a dai­ly rit­u­al, as an hour of mu­sic and singing was the re­quire­ment for the fam­i­ly be­fore din­ner. This ear­ly dis­ci­pline helped nur­ture her voice and pas­sion. She en­rolled in Gand­har­va Ma­havidyalaya, one of the best mu­sic in­sti­tutes in In­dia, known for pro­duc­ing top-tier artists, and she was a stu­dent there for eight years. Even as a young girl, Dr Dhyani was al­ready com­pet­ing in school mu­sic com­pe­ti­tions, her tal­ent and con­fi­dence grow­ing with each per­for­mance.

With her fa­ther and mu­sic teach­ers as guid­ing lights of her mu­si­cal path, up­on com­ple­tion of her diplo­ma, at 18 years old, she was in­vit­ed by the school’s prin­ci­pal to start teach­ing mu­sic. This marked the be­gin­ning of a 27-year teach­ing ca­reer that spanned coun­tries and con­ti­nents, in­clud­ing South Africa, Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States.

Her aca­d­e­m­ic jour­ney con­tin­ued in par­al­lel, and she com­plet­ed a BA, MA, MPhil and PhD in Vo­cal Mu­sic, a six-year diplom learn­ing and teach­ing be­came the defin­ing rhythm of her life.

In ad­di­tion to teach­ing in In­di­an gov­ern­ment schools, Dr Dhyani be­came part of a pres­ti­gious cul­tur­al ini­tia­tive. Se­lect­ed by the In­di­an Gov­ern­ment to rep­re­sent the coun­try abroad, she was post­ed at em­bassies and cul­tur­al cen­tres, with a ma­jor post­ing be­ing in Jo­han­nes­burg, South Africa. Through­out her ca­reer, Dhyani has be­come very well re­spect­ed and has gained tremen­dous trac­tion in the prop­a­ga­tion of East In­di­an mu­sic in par­tic­u­lar and has sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­pact­ed and im­print­ed her sig­na­ture on the mu­si­cal land­scape of T&T.

Now in her third year in T&T, as a vo­cal teacher at the Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi In­sti­tute for Cul­tur­al Co­op­er­a­tion in Mount Hope, she re­mem­bers the first time she vis­it­ed, when her hus­band was teach­ing mu­sic in 2016. “I was so sur­prised at how strong and deeply root­ed In­di­an cul­ture is in T&T, so far away from In­dia,” where, in some ways, the tra­di­tion­al is not as pow­er­ful. As a mu­sic teacher, she is awed by the love of mu­sic that Trinida­di­ans have and the “re­li­gious and spir­i­tu­al mind of so many peo­ple, where they love to sing in tem­ples and play har­mo­ni­ums, with mu­sic tran­scend­ing ages”. As a veg­e­tar­i­an, she al­so de­lights in Tri­ni food that lends it­self so well to de­li­cious meat­less meals, with her favourites be­ing aloo pie, roti, and dou­bles.

Her role is not just to teach mu­sic but to pro­mote In­di­an mu­sic and cul­ture glob­al­ly—a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty she em­braces with great pride, and she says that her ex­pe­ri­ence teach­ing in Trinidad has been par­tic­u­lar­ly ful­fill­ing. She has stu­dents aged six to 74 who make time in their busy lives to learn mu­sic, not for ex­ams or ca­reers, but out of sheer love. She finds the way Tri­nis find time to pur­sue their pas­sions in­spir­ing and en­joys con­nect­ing with her stu­dents, “drink­ing chai to­geth­er, con­nect­ing and form­ing com­mu­ni­ty”.

Al­though she has per­formed all over the world, in Jo­han­nes­burg, Dur­ban, Grena­da, New York, and Do­mini­ca, among oth­ers, her great­est achieve­ment lies in the suc­cess of her stu­dents, as she says, “noth­ing makes me hap­pi­er”.

Cred­it­ing her strong foun­da­tion and fam­i­ly for giv­ing her the con­fi­dence to aim high, she said that “in In­dia, many par­ents don’t al­low their daugh­ters to ex­press them­selves freely.”

With the ear­ly sup­port of her fa­ther, who gave her a strong sense of in­de­pen­dence, she has nev­er felt lim­it­ed as a woman in her field. Her gen­der nev­er be­came a bar­ri­er; in­stead, it be­came a qui­et strength. This led her to be pub­lished in sev­er­al aca­d­e­m­ic jour­nals and to be award­ed and ho­n­oured by the In­di­an Gov­ern­ment and oth­er in­sti­tu­tions. With many ac­co­lades un­der her belt and equipped with her self-be­lief, Dr Dhyani now in­tends to pur­sue her goal of open­ing a mu­sic in­sti­tute in In­dia up­on her re­turn.

Aside from her ca­reer, she is a moth­er of three and del­i­cate­ly bal­ances her pro­fes­sion­al com­mit­ments with par­ent­ing. Her el­dest son, 21, stud­ies Com­put­er Sci­ence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and thrives in its nur­tur­ing aca­d­e­m­ic en­vi­ron­ment. Her daugh­ter, 18, is a bud­ding writer and po­et who just fin­ished Up­per Six, and her youngest son, 11, re­cent­ly passed the SEA ex­am.

Al­though she ac­knowl­edges the chal­lenges in mov­ing her chil­dren from one coun­try to an­oth­er, she be­lieves this ex­po­sure has been in­valu­able. Ac­cord­ing to Dr Dhyani, “Their Eng­lish is ex­cel­lent, and they are co­op­er­a­tive, in­de­pen­dent chil­dren who have been able to ex­plore them­selves and their in­ter­ests, learn­ing and grow­ing from ex­pe­ri­enc­ing di­verse cul­tures.”

Through it all, Dr Kam­la Dhyani re­mains ground­ed.

She con­sid­ers her­self most for­tu­nate to em­bark on this self­less jour­ney which she saw as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to share her knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence by con­tin­u­ing in the foot­steps and the de­vel­op­ment of the rich her­itage and lega­cy which our East In­di­an fore­fa­thers brought to Trinidad.

Her life is a con­stant cy­cle of learn­ing, teach­ing, and adapt­ing. “Life is just to learn,” she says sim­ply. “When you stop learn­ing, you stop grow­ing.”

Whether she re­mains in Trinidad or re­turns to In­dia to start her own mu­sic in­sti­tute, one thing is cer­tain: her lega­cy as a teacher, cul­tur­al am­bas­sador, and moth­er will res­onate across gen­er­a­tions and bor­ders.