User:Palu Malaowalla/sandbox

Avijit Sarkar is a musician, composer, illustrator, cartoonist, writer, poet, playwright, mathematician, puppeteer, philanthropist and an autodidact from Sydney, Australia. With his footprint in every form of creativity, he is one of the most recognised personalities within the South-Asian communities in Australia.

Avijit Sarkar

Early Life

Avijit was born in April 1957, to musicians Roma and Durgashankar Sarkar, in a lower middle-class family in Kolkata (India). His early memories are images of his parents practicing music or performing on stage. By the age of just three, Avijit could draw chalk illustrations on the concrete floor of the little room where he lived with his parents in the suburb of Bowbazar in Kolkata. His parents could hardly afford to buy paper and pencils for him but he still remembers his mother proudly saying that "her son could draw well before he started talking properly". Soon, driven by better prospects, the family moved to the city of Ahmedabad in the state of Gujarat. The year was 1962. In the same year, the family was blessed with a little girl Sarmishtha Sarkar, arrived in the family. Today, Sarmishtha is a reputed dancer and choreographer in Ahmedabad.

Early Learning

Unable to get admission in a good school, Avijit was educated at home by his mother till he was able to get a place in a traditional English medium school in third grade. A very quiet child, he hardly ever excelled in studies, but made an immediate mark in school with his painting abilities. His art teachers encouraged him to sit for the government Elementary Art Examinations. He passed with flying colours and in grade five, he was as one of the youngest people to pass this exam in the state. A couple of years later, he also passed the Intermediate Art Examination. At home, his mother took notice of his keen interest in music and started teaching him the basics of singing. Being an extremely shy child, Avijit was more keen on learning the Indian drum "Tabla" from his father who was an accomplished table-player.

In the sixth grade, at the behest of his parents, Avijit appeared for an interview to get admission at St. Xavier’s High School. The principle of the school, Father Ortega, accepted him into the school based entirely only on his painting abilities. Interestingly, till the seventh grade, Avijit could hardly put together a sentence in English and it was a book by Enid Blyton (and encouragement from a kind neighbor) that set Avijit off on the path of books and literature.

Throughout his years in school, in spite of his parent’s concerns, Avijit rarely showed any interest in his studies being more dedicated to practicing music and art at home. During his high school days, his kind neighbor (a gentleman by the name of Amar Ganguli, an eminent Bengali actor) produced a play and trained Avijit in the lead role. Avijit’s acting debut made headlines in the local newspapers and the directors of Ahmedabad’s famous academy of arts Darpana, took Avijit in for getting trained in dramatics. During one of the training sessions, However, during one of the play reading sessions, Avijit observed puppeteers performing in an adjacent room. He then convinced his parents to move him into puppetry and creative theater. This was the beginning of a 12-year long stint in puppetry under the tutelage of internationally acclaimed puppeteer Meher Contractor.

College Days

By the time Avijit enrolled into St. Xaviers College in Ahmedabad in 1973, a financial crisis had come over the family. His father had lost most of his life savings and the family entered a phase of hardship that would last many years. By the time he was in the first year of college, he had gained mastery over many musical instruments including drums, Latin percussion, harmonium and the Hawaiian slide guitar (he learnt many of these all on his own). On the academic side, Avijit suddenly found his grove in the second year of college when he chose Mathematics as his primary subject. From the very first lecture, he was fascinated with the pure forms of mathematics and from there on, there was no looking back as he delved into the complex world of mathematics with extraordinary passion. He was still very much of an introvert but would used to often sing songs for friends at the college canteen. His friends finally convinced him to appear for an audition for the college talent evening. He was immediately selected by the judges and at his very first appearance on stage in 1976, a local music producer signed him up for a series of concert contracts. This was the beginning for a career in music that would span over four decades.

In 1976, he met a Parsi girl (three years his junior in college) by the name of Palu Malaowalla whom he would marry after eight years of courtship. In later years, Palu passed her medical exams and later finished her specialization with Ophthalmology.

Avijit passed his Bachelor’s degree examination with Mathematics in 1977 and created a record in the University with his grades and marks. He was given the top rank in the University (among all subject streams) and was awarded two gold medals for his academic achievements. During these years, he also started working at Doordarshan TV and All India Radio as a musician and singer. Encouraged by his success with mathematics, Avijit decided to complete his master’s degree in mathematics at Gujarat University.

University Days

This was a time of great hardship for him as his family depended on him for finances. He struggled for years and supported his family with money from concerts and at the same time balancing his rigorous studies at University. In his spare time, These were the years when Avijit indulged in literature with an insatiable hunger for reading; delving into the works of every classical English and Hindi writer and absorbing the history of English literature.

In 1979, Avijit topped the University in his master’s degree (writing his thesis on the theory of numbers) and created a record of sorts for being the only student in the entire university to have secured a high distinction level in the examination. He was then immediately accepted in the PhD program and he decided to study Space-Time theory. However, Avijit could never realise his dreams. Driven by financial pressures and University politics, he was forced to take up work as a mathematics teacher at his alma mater St. Xaviers High School. In a year’s time, encouraged by some family friends, he decided to move to a very popular area of specialization in those years – computer software. In the meanwhile, the demand for his skills on stage as a musician and singer capitulated to exceptional heights with contracts for hundreds of stage concerts. These are the years when he expanded his repertoire to include Western pop and rock music. In the evening, when time permitted, Avijit continued to train in puppetry and pursued his hobbies of art and literature.

The move to computing sciences

Without any qualification in computing, Avijit was able to secure his first job as a trainee programmer based only on his score at an IQ examination conducted by a local engineering firm. From there on, Avijit took on the formidable task of training himself in the science of computing. He read a plethora of technical books and papers available in the libraries and managed to digest every bit of information about this vast subject. Completely self-taught and backed up by his knowledge of pure mathematics, in the next few years he, in fact, started teaching computing science in small educational institutions and then finally capped his achievements by being appointed as Associate Professor of Computing Science and System Design at the prestigious Bhavan’s College. In later years, he worked with some of the largest computer firms in India and was a part of the faculty in several colleges and educational institutions.

Cartooning and Puppetry

In 1984, Avijit joined India’s prestigious newspaper The Times of India as a manager in their IT department. An editor in the newspaper chanced to see his cartoons and offered to publish the works regularly in the weekly section called the Mid-Week Montage. His works were published in the newspaper for the next two years. In 1984, he married Palu after eight long years of courtship and in the same year they traveled with the Darpana Puppetry troupe to the celebrated international festival of puppetry at Charleville-Mézières in France. During their short stay in France, impressed by the free and democratic lifestyle, both decided to move out of India. A few years after this, the two of them also traveled to Iran for international festivals of drama and puppetry.

In 1987, a beautiful girl Anaita Sarkar was born to them and in 1990, the family migrated to Australia. Today, Anaita is an entrepreneur and runs her own company Olivia&Co.

Life in Australia

Avijit has been an integral part of the Indian cultural scene in Sydney since the year he put his foot on Australian soil. He started life here as an IT consultant and then retired from the IT industry after 12 years. Today, he is the practice manager at his wife's successful medical practice that she established nearly two decades ago.

Avijit has been endorsed by the Australian Performing Rights Association (APRA) as a music composer. He has staged scores of concerts in Australia and has provided accompaniment to legendary musicians like Ghulam Ali, Anup Jhalota, Munni Beghum, Abida Parveen and others. In 2007 he established Natraj Academy, a school of music in Sydney. Since then, scores of voices been trained by him at the academy. For a couple of years, he was the vice-president of Bhavan Australia.

Since 2010, Avijit has donated proceeds from all his creative endeavors to medical research and charity. His first book – A Turn of Events – a collection of short stories was published in 2017 and raised a huge sum for cancer research. His designs, illustrations and cartoons have appeared in many books and publications. Currently he is working on several collections (short stories, essays, plays, prose-poems) and a long novel. He is also involved in the development an exhibition which will be a series of illustrations and paintings that will combine traditional art forms with digital technology.

During the last four decades, other than music, mathematics, arts and literature, Avijit has also indulged in other art forms like origami and macramé. Unknown to many, he is also an excellent close-up magician specialisng with cards.

Avijit Sarkar lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife Palu Malaowalla, daughter Anaita Sarkar (married to Vikram Dave) and two granddaughters Olivia and Chloe.