Music knows no barriers

The website of ‘Världens Band’ opens to the statement ‘Fourteen musicians, seven countries, three continents, one band. Världens Band creates captivating world music that unites across borders.’

It is not often that one would come across a band that has such strong presence of musicians coming together from different parts of the world rooting for a change — to create music without border. So ask what the India connect of this band is — out comes a familiar name Charu Hariharan.

Charu had humble beginnings growing up under her singer mother B. Arundhati and banker father T.S. Hariharan. Music surged through her veins and her love for the art form grew with her. Soon it became a passion she could not do without.

Along with learning Carnatic music, Charu decided to learn mridangam by the age of 9, the next thing she knew she was noticed as this prodigy whose fingers moved skilfully on the mridangam, mastering the art like she was born for it.
Though music remained her first love, she graduated in Psychology and turned out to be a guest lecturer at the University of Kerala. But that did not stop her from taking her knowledge of music across borders.

Today she is part of the 'Världens Band', a group of highly talented young musicians who strongly preach its motto of uniting the world with music. Charu is one of the vocalist and percussionist of the band.

So what is this Världens Band? “Världens in Swedish is spelled as ‘Vaden’ and it means world! The band comprises of musicians from India, Sweden, Senegal, Tunisia, England, Scotland and France.It is the brainchild of Erik Rask and his brother Arvid. The idea was to start it off as a project in 2012 as an experiment to create band of folk music with people from different cultural and economic backgrounds. But the projects are short-lived, so we decided to form a band with permanent members,” she says.

In the ‘about’ section of the band's website a line describes the formation of the group as ‘seemingly impossible to fit together and a board set for possible conflict with religious and political differences.’ That is the common expectation from a group of people coming from different countries with varied culture and traditions. The members, however, have proved that with music as a common language, a group of youngsters can grow, flourish and create groundbreaking music.

“All the members are in perfect sync with each other. There is mutual respect between all the members. We wanted to show the world that such a group with varied background can exist together,” explains Charu.

The band has become a huge hit in European countries, especially in Sweden. “One of the reasons for the success of the band was the higher ratio of female musicians. Countries like Sweden are highly feministic and they are very particular about equal representation of women, makes it politically powerful.”

Charu’s entry into the band was a surprise. “I had no plans to be part of independent music. I happened to get selected for an Ethno Swedish music camp. I was one of the three representatives from India. There were a total of 120 musicians, from whom six of us were shortlisted for another Ethno music tour, which led to the formation of the band.”

When asked about how much being a part of Världens Band has changed her, Charu says, “There are times when we tend to think that Indian classical music is the most complex; that has changed greatly. I cannot even begin to explain the kind of complexities that can be seen in other kinds of music. My narrow-minded approach toward music has changed a lot and so has my personality.”