Greek man who sings ‘Bhajagovindam’ and ‘Vaishnava janatho’ with gusto

Konstantinos Kalaitzis is in love with everything Indian
| Photo Credit: Special arrangement

Greek researcher and Indophile Konstantinos Kalaitzis has visited India 45 times in the last three decades.

He has visited every state and Union Territory in search of classical and folk music, and dance forms to document and learn. He sings Carnatic music, bhajans, ghazals, qawwali, plays the tabla and has given concerts in India and other parts of the world. He eventually plans to set up a museum in Greece to house his collection of 180 Indian classical and folk musical instruments.

Konstantinos Kalaitzis at Puttaparthi in 1994
| Photo Credit:
Special arrangement

Kalaitzis was in Hyderabad recently for his ongoing research on tribal traditions of music and their instruments. He is set to get his book on Indian music in Greek published in English.

Titled Indian Music, the nearly 500-page coffee table book on Indian classical and folk music, composers, poets and instruments has 700 rare photographs by Kalaitzis as well as 181 sound samples of the instruments embedded.

The cover is a photograph of Tyagaraja that Kalaitzis found painted on a stone in Puttaparthi in Andhra Pradesh. “I visited the ashram in 1994 and stumbled on this painting on the stone. I don’t know who the painter is but I found it fascinating and clicked a photo and decided to use it on the cover of my book,” says Kalaitzis.

Early influence

Kalaitzis’ curiosity and love for Indian culture started in his childhood. He first heard his parents play Indian songs with Greek lyrics at home in 1961. “These were popular folk songs sung by famous Greek singers of that time in Greece. Most people did not know about the Indian origin of the music… we just liked these songs and sang them,” says Kalaitzis.

At school, while all the other children sang those simple rhymes, six-year-old Kalaitzis would sing Indian-Greek songs. “I started listening to the Beatles around 1970. I thought it was an interesting coincidence that although I had no connection to India at that time, I particularly liked George Harrison, who was Ravi Shankar’s disciple on the sitar and whose music had many Indian elements,” adds Kalaitzis.

He attended one of Ravi Shankar’s concerts and was mesmerised by the accompanying tabla artiste Kumar Bose. “I was greatly inspired by the tabla and was determined to learn to play it, which, in a way, motivated me to visit India. I made my first trip in 1987.”

Classical pursuits

His musical pursuits went beyond learning the tabla — he taught himself to sing all the genres of Indian music. His rendition of ‘Bhajagovindam’, as popularised by MS Subbulakshmi, was a commendable attempt where he got even the gamakas right. “People ask me how I manage the pronunciation of Sanskrit words and sing without knowing the meaning. I connect to the emotion,” he smiles.

In 2018, Kalaitzis was invited by the Indian government to represent Greece among other 155 countries to sing ‘Vaishnava Janatho’ on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary.

“I see an inherent cultural bonding between India and Greece. Both the countries are proud of their respective ancient heritage and keep alive their rich art forms.,” says Kalaitzis for whom consuming idli-sambar-vada is as essential as holding forth on the sadhana of a Carnatic raga every day.