SPIC MACAY – SYNA International School, Katni

SPIC MACAY

The society for the promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth. Its a voluntary youth movement which promotes intangible aspects of Indian Cultural Heritage. It seeks to conserve and promote an awareness of this rich and heterogeneous cultural tapestry.It is an affirmation of a priceless cultural heritage rooted in what is essentially Indian.With the onslaught of rapid change and global homogenization, this multifaceted Indian heritage is being increasingly marginalized and diluted.

The “big bang” of SPIC MACAY came in 1972 at a concert of Ustad Nasir Aminuddin Dagar and Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. After a few sporadic concerts (notable amongst them was that of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan) at Columbia University, New York, under the aegis of the India Club of Columbia University during the period 1972-76, the idea took a more defined direction in 1977 in India.

However in 1979, a two-day programme again at IIT Delhi of Ustad Bismillah Khan, Dagar Bandhu, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and Ustad Sitahid Parvez turned out to be a marginal success. MEFYS( Mechanical Engineering Final Year Students) organized the programme. It was at this programme that the name SPIC MACAY was first launched and the aim expressed was not to fight Westernisation but the process of deculturisation.