Music to treat autistic kids

How Academy Award Nominee Bombay Jayashri Is Using Music To Help Autistic Kids

Bombay Jayashri Ramnath needs no introduction. She is now changing the lives of many autistic kids by working extensively as an important part of Sampoorna Music Therapy Center where she shares her art with kids with special needs.

Sampoorna Music Therapy Center was started a few years ago as the joint efforts of Ganesh Anantharaman, his wife Kavita, Bombay Jayshri and many other volunteers. This gave her an opportunity to teach music to autistic kids.

What really made her pursue this field was her encounter with Kavita's son (founder's son). She said “When I met him he was three and half years old and he was singing a line which is actually quite difficult to sing for an untrained person and takes years of practice to master. His voice had that kind of purity and his concentration touched me. Since then, I have had numerous experiences which have validated our thought that music can indeed help these children.

Since autistic kids tend to follow routines, she places music around them and lets them immerse into it. Music gave them a sense of calmness and happiness. Because, Carnatic music employed more of alliteration, it was easy on their ears.

Over various sessions, she created many songs that would suit the moods and interests of these kids. They could sing and relate to these songs easily. And in a period of about 6 months, they gradually became calm and one could see the change and difference in the attitude and behaviour of these children.

When we asked her what the parents felt, she said ”We have met some parents who said that we have always been told what our child “cannot” do, it is for the first time here that someone is showing us what our child can do”

The most touching experience that Bombay Jayshri has had by far was when he met a child by a name Manas. She recalls that he would listen to a song called Manasa Sanchare daily as he believed that she had sung the song for him. And one time when they were in the same gathering he heard her voice and hugged her knees tightly. This was indeed a miracle because autistic children are reluctant to communicate with strangers.However. this child had not thought twice before hugging her. She said ”I can still feel what I felt then. I still remember the warmth of that hug and the purity in his emotions. And music had brought us together”

Thus, from her tryst with music for autistic kids to changing patterns in the music industry, Classical Singer Bombay Jayshri is an amazing human being and has once again earned heaps of admiration from us.