Support My Dream Of Pulling India Out Of Depression

Dear all,

Hi, I am Shiv Sachdeva, a resident of New Delhi, India seeking help to accomplish my dream of becoming a successful Luthier. All I want to convey is that I want to live this dream…for myself…for my Father who probably knows what a person’s dreams can mean to him/her more than anyone else, my Mother, my sister, and moreover, my country.

Now you guys may wonder what is Luthiery?

Luthiery is the study of making String Instruments such as Guitars, Violins, Violas, Cellos, Double Bass, etc.

It is a shame that being a country which gave birth to music, with a humongous population of 138 billion people doesn’t have people who create Instruments. I dream of making it happen by learning Art of Making Guitars. Despite India being a home to 12-14 Luthiers, it is still unknown and unmet to the global world of handmade guitars; despite being the birthplace of Music, I have heard people from other countries mocking at India-made instruments and their qualities . With all due respect to all Indian Luthiers, I have never come across any single such Luthier in India who does anything beyond guitar-making, but my cause is not to limit myself to simply making a fancy wooden instrument with a few tuned chords, it is much more than that. My goal is providing therapy through my Art, through my Guitars, as they won’t just be guitars, but an embodiment of a person’s inner self.

I had been in a state of depression for a long period, and that was the time when I started developing this deeper connection with music. Why Luthiery then you ask? Well the joy and satisfaction that I get when I see people making guitars is just the way a mother feels when her baby starts talking for the first time, or when a sous chef comes up with the most famous dish that a restaurant can probably sell. To be honest if I have to give a reason as to why I chose Luthiery over anything else, then that’ll be somewhat unfair because when our passion for something starts having reasons then it is no longer love that we feel for it, it’s more of lust that can end anytime the reasons get quenched.

I discovered music therapy as one of the very effective ways of soothing anxiety and certain other psychological issues which can be healed faster through music, and I have experienced it myself. I want the people of my country to feel the same, especially now that mental health awareness is becoming such an important issue. I want to deliver it to them through my Art and my work. But then why should I learn Luthiery? Histories of classical forms of dance say that Art can only be successfully accomplished by developing a connection between your Art and the medium used, which is Mother Earth in case of Dance, and Instruments in case of Music. Each and every guitar that i make shall be a tapestry of the life and emotions of the person owning it, it is my promise to make it happen that whenever a person holds his/her guitar he/she feels the soul within reverberating to communicate to them, just like I do when I see Luthiers making them.

Of course there are commercially produced guitars available too just like many other commercially produced commodities, so why do people strive so much to get something that is handmade? Is it always just a matter of luxury? Maybe not. Any artistic object can’t really be quantified in terms of luxury that way, as Art in itself is a treasure trove, and all I want is to share a part of this trove with my fellow countrymen, many of whom are suffering from so many issues every second of their life. I want this Art of mine to be my sole identity and I want its therapeutic value to be understood by people deeply and thus my goal of getting properly trained is to deliver nothing but finesse and premium quality products.

Now, that I want to make all this happen, the only thing that is holding me is my financial condition, as Luthiery requires a lot of finances due to the resources that it happens to employ such as wood, hand tools, hardware etc. This is the one thing that I want to present as a gift and a dedication to my Father, that yes I can, that yes he tried and that yes he succeeded through me. This shall be my honorarium to my mentor, my Gurudakshina (the tradition of repaying one’s teacher or guru) to him.

To learn this Art, getting proper training is very important. for which I need to go out of the country and join a renowned school teaching the same.

I plan to join Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery which is Located in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, the fee for which is approximately $23,000 excluding my over head expenses which include my visa, travel expenses, medical expenses and other such expenses as you can view on their website (roberto-venn.com) as well, which requires me to collect and save a lot of money. However, this happens to be the current fees, and post pandemic the fees may increase as well. With my given financial condition, it is pretty difficult for my parents to balance my college education, my sister’s studies and the household expenses at the same time, and thus funding my Luthiery training is a next to impossible kind of thing for them. We are somewhat relieved that this happens to be my final year of college, however post college, being able to fund my further training while setting aside household and oldage expenses is just not possible for my parents, as their incomes have already been blocked for the last couple of months due to the global pandemic. 2020 has not only been wreaking havoc globally but personally in my life as well, and given such conditions being able to continue onto a dream this expensive is a kind of a financially unaffordable task, the idea of giving up on which is affecting my mental health a lot making me more and more anxious even as I write this.

The reason for asking for such a huge amount is not only getting into this institution, but also buying the basic tools for the same so that I can start practising with them and such tools happen to cost a lot.

This dream of mine shall not only be an enriching experience for me but shall also be an asset to my motherland as I wish to start my own company and teach Luthiery at reasonable rates so that no aspiring luthier has to ever worry about funding issues like I am, and so that no one can ever say that Indian handmade guitars are not quality products.

And all this I want to do on my own, because this is about me building my identity, and all I want is to stand strong, so that i don’t have to see my parents wondering how they will manage our studies, the household expenses and their old age savings, so that everytime i hear about people falling prey to mental distress, I don’t have to feel guilty that how if I had the resources I could have helped them and how I can’t now because of my economic conditions.

All I want to appeal to every person reading my story is that this is not only about me, but about all of us, all of our benefit and welfare, I have full confidence in myself, the will to go against all odds and make it happen and the skills to go about it, now all I want is support from all of you to help me achieve this.