My name is Saurabh Mishra. My cultural background is Indian and I've spent more than two thirds of my life living in Australia as Australian as well. My my creative practice is in designing classical music and the vocal form of that You know, a lot of people are passionate about wanting my blessing or a curse, depending on how you view it.
As I'm passionate about many things. I'm passionate about just about anything that that that comes my way. Music clearly is is a is an abiding passion. I am an entrepreneur. I'm a businessman. I've done a lot of work in health care and health care. I get very passionate about my projects. I've got a couple of projects on right now.
Very passionate about my family and, you know, their well-being. My friends and, you know, I'm involved with other creative pursuits like theatre, you know, very, very interested and involved in that as well. Golf, cricket. So you name it. And whatever I do, I certainly would put my my whole into it.
I really strongly identify with two cultures. It's the Indian and the land and the Australian of the Western I think the Indian part of my culture really talks very eloquently about spiritual connection and spiritual knowing, and that pretty much that the purpose of life is to understand who I am, spiritually speaking. And a lot of practices like yoga meditation and in fact India's only classical music.
I very much designed for that. So I do meditate, I do practice yoga, I do sing. So all of those things on a daily basis, it really connect me back very firmly with that part of my culture and with my Australian Western identification. You know, I think this is a great place to live. We have we relaxed, we can laugh at ourselves.
I think Australians are known for good sense of humour. And all those things are very, very meaningful to me. From a business perspective, for example, you know, things go up, things go down. I think those things, first of all from an Indian perspective, the ability to kind of see past, you know, what a temporary ups and downs to the to the hole that is always there.
It's quite joyous and from an Australian perspective to really be able to laugh at that and, and be a bit Happy-Go-Lucky So I think both things are certainly very much a constant part of my, my day to day living when it comes to Hindustani classical music. It is a highly improvised art form. So, you know, if I'm if I'm singing for, say, half an hour, it's just the one song that I'm singing for half an hour.
And I am I only have two or three lines of that song. The rest of it is all made up, it's all improvised. And it's not just anything. It's obviously made up enough in a certain framework of what is called the raga, which is the melody and the and the tail, which is the beat cycle, and in finite variations within that.
And certainly the expectation is that I don't repeat something. So so, you know, what does it take to be able to present something like that? Obviously, a lot of training, a lot of a lot of focus on, on the, on the vocal training and the purity of the note but ultimately, you've got to go do some sort of you've got to be very mindful and you've got to go into, I think, a space which is which is where creativity comes and it's inspiring.
And all that can only happen when you really, you know, you settle down your breathing, you kind of, you know, let go for things that have happened before. So I think mindfulness really becomes a very important element of a performance like that. So that's really how. And as I mentioned, sort of the Indian part of my culture is really all about that that idea of self-discovery, of love and self discovery through being observant and mindful.
So that really comes in very strongly within, say, classical music. And the other part of the Indian spiritual, spiritual tradition is this idea of joy, expansive joy, you know, so who are we ultimately? The answer is we are joy. We are we are bliss. We're bliss personified. And with this music, I certainly feel that. And, you know, I'm not talking about even performing in front of anyone.
It's just when I'm sitting by myself and doing my own at what's called jazz or training, you know, it's there that joy is there, right there. So I think whether it's the music itself or a lot of the lyrics, a lot of the songs are also about devotion and joy. So those things combine very nicely. And, you know, each time I do, whereas you know, it's very much a really reconnecting with that joy.
So, yeah, that's, that's, that's how I think the culture and the practice come together quite, quite synergistically You know, I mentioned creativity. And I think, you know, I think of of us having different kinds of consciousness, different kinds of minds. And so there is certainly a creative consciousness. And I think that's a common, universal creative consciousness. I just happen to express that through in the form of Hindustani classical vocal.
Another person expresses it through Hindustani classical instrumental. Another person expresses it through jazz. Another person expresses through visual art. Another person expresses it through writing or storytelling, you know, dance. So I feel fundamentally we are all as humans going back to the same creative source, same creative consciousness. We're getting our inspiration from there and just expressing it in ways that that that we are comfortable with, almost more conditioned with So I think that that way that arts, culture, creativity really is a is a way to I think if you can see past and you can go back into any kind of artist, you know, you'll find that you find a sense of that that creative consciousness
You know, I think we're all viscerally tuned to to do that. So that's what that's what it for me when I look at any kind of artistic performance, any kind of creative endeavour, and to be honest, business as well. I mean, there's nothing different there. A great idea or a great strategy, well executed. It's it's also coming from the same creative consciousness.
Yeah. So that's that's I essentially see a fundamental unity, you know, and that's how it brings us brings us all together.
There's a there's a beautiful phrase in Sanskrit, and the phrase is hurry, hurry and enter hurry. Is God the divinity? Ananta means in finite and Harry categories, the stories of the expressions of the divine are infinite. So the the the divine is in finite and the expressions of divine are finite. So I think, you know, diversity means exactly that.
Diversity means that it's an opportunity for me to look at this endless this in finite expression of of the same divinity, you know, in different terms of different practices, different cultures, different races. You know, different beliefs, each human being. If you fundamentally believe that each human being is an expression of divinity, then, you know, life is magical. As you meet new people, you just look for, you know, what is the spark of divinity?
What is the special thing that that the divine has manifested in this particular personality or in this particular group of group of people? I think it's you know, it's it's just a joyous way to live. So I think diversity is I think we're very, very fortunate, you know, to live in a country like Australia. Where diversity is encouraged.
You know, it's it's a public policy encouragement, but it's it's there. To see him in Melbourne is is not the world's most liveable city for no reason. It's because it's so diverse. And, you know, I think whether you think about it from arts music or for or even just food, for example, you know, it adds to such richness for our lives.
So yeah, I think diversity is an absolute asset that's a good cornerstone for for our community.