Saving the jaw harp: Varun Zinje a.k.a. Morchangwala at TEDxEMWS

"The singer has everything within him. The notes come out from his life. There are no materials gathered from outside." This quote by Rabindranath Tagore inspired Varun Zinje a.k.a Morchangwala to take his art of playing the Morchang to the streets of Mumbai. He plans to educate music lovers around the world about the instrument and it's relation to Indian culture. Varun started playing the Morchang only a few years back and had no knowledge about Indian folk music, however after spending hours of practice on an old rusty instrument without any guidance from a teacher, he came up with his own unique way of playing the instrument. He believes that the only way to save this unique instrument from extinction is to play it as if the instrument belonged to this period of time, thus he incorporates modern day drum & bass music into the tunes he plays.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

TEDxEMWS is the brave venture into the world of innovation and reflection for members of the ever-evolving education community in Mumbai.

TEDxEMWS was held on the 1st of February 2014. Bringing together the TED philosophy & the IB mission statement, the event aimed to ensure that speakers of various disciplines come together so as to be able to inspire the new generation of leaders into reforming society & ushering in new changes. By bringing together high school students from around Mumbai, the aim of the event is not necessarily to change the views of those present completely but simply open them to the different possibilities that can be explored as speakers build their talks around the theme 'Limitless Paradigms'.

Talks edited by Studio 7. View all talks at: www.tedxemws.com
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