She cut her first album at the age of nine. Listening to her skilful rendition of 10 ragas in this collection, one could easily declare her a child prodigy. Yet, if you tried to have a regular conversation with this musical wiz kid, she might just look through you, smile a bit and move on into her own world, or completely ignore you and go on humming to herself. The only way to enter her world is to understand her music. 17-year old Benzy is a special child. She cannot converse, she expresses her emotions through music.For her mother, Kavita Kumar, the struggle has been intense to help Benzy become self reliant and carve her own identity.
When she noticed Benzy reacting to musical toys as an infant, she took it as a cue to bring more harmony and rhythm into her life. With her firm belief in the healing power of music, Kavita initiated Benzy’s
music training.
For the first two to three years, Benzy did not respond to the music lessons, leaving her music guru perplexed and disappointed. But Kavita insisted that the lessons continue and tried out different ways of helping Benzy internalise the grammar of notes. In the process, she also trained herself in the special methods that could be designed to teach music to special children. Today, she runs the Dhoon Foundation in New Delhi that is committed to exploring the artistic talents of special children and for providing them a platform for stage exposure. This idea germinated through her own struggle to find such a platform for her daughter.
By the age of seven, Benzy started grasping her vocal music training phenomenally and also started playing the keyboard by herself. Kavita approached several event managers and organisers to provide Benzy her first chance as a performer. After facing a series of rejections, since people were reluctant to take the risk of putting a
special child on stage, she decided to get Benzy’s music recorded in order to showcase her singing talent. They went to the studio only to realise that Benzy was not comfortable singing with headphones and could not adjust to the concept of take-retake. Ultimately, all ten songs were recorded in one sitting, without retakes, and her first audio cassette Basic Raagas was released. Her next album Koshish was the first experiment in which a mentally challenged child has sung on a music track. Her latest album Ashaayein launched by Lata Mangeshkar, contains fresh compositions and lyrics by Kavita. These songs try to capture the emotions that a special child may not otherwise be able to express. The driving force behind Dhoon Foundation, Kavita has inspired many more such special stars and underprivileged children to find a means of reaching out to society through their art. But can these children actually be integrated into the mainstream? Yes, believes Kavita, “They can find their own identity as a professional. It is important that they be given opportunities on the same platform so that they can be understood and appreciated.”
One method of facilitating this is by creating a mixed group for performance, consisting of music professionals also, so that the performance of special children gets enhanced and a healthy music dialogue takes place. She recounts an event they hosted at Lucknow in 2007—Benzy Nite. Attended by thousands at the Surya Auditorium, the concert featured Benzy as the main artiste, who sang for hours at this performance, even presenting duets with professional singers. A recipient of two National awards, (2004 and 2006), Karam Veer Puruskar(2007) by ICONGO NGO, and an artiste with All India Radio, she now performs in mainstream music festivals as a professional artiste.
As Benzy opens up new paths for special children through her musical journey, one does notice a melody of hope—the hope that society would tune in, look beyond over the stereotypes and discover the artists in these speciallyabled people.
