Rome – In a rare act of homage to Mother Teresa, an Indian alumna of a premiere school in Guwahati gave a concert at the Salesian Headquarters in Rome on the eve of her canonization.
Sunita Khaund Bhuyan a well known musician in the country and an alumna of Salesian Sisters run St Mary’s School Guwahati performed a violin and vocal concert in homage to St Teresa of Calcutta entitled ‘The Joy of Giving’.
Accompanied by her husband Mr Surojit Bhuyan, she performed at the Don Bosco HQ and delivered a musical exposition on the joy of living, explaining its concept.
Guwahati provincial Fr Thomas Vattathara (V.M.) who arranged for the performance at The Pisana (DB HQ) had earlier described Bhuyan as the ‘Joy of Giving Ambassador’ for her extensive work with children under Don Bosco Child Friendly Guwahati (CFG) project as a musician.
Started in 2013 the CFG is a focused civil society campaign to create a city-wide movement of citizenry for children, especially those out of school, who either roam on the streets, involved in begging, rag-picking, employed in domestic and other forms of child labour and substance abuse.
Under the inspiration of Guwahati provincial Fr Thomas Vattathara (V.M.) Bhuyan religiously gives 20% of her time to music as a form of therapy for the underprivileged.
“I feel, the more you give, the more you get,” said Bhuyan to a crowd of Salesians including Fathers, Sisters, Brothers and lay collaborators gathered at the Aula Magna (Great Hall) at DB HQ.
Feeling humbled and blessed, the Mumbai based violinist says, “when I started this journey with street kids at Shelter Don Bosco, Wadala (Mumbai) I never realised that my weekend rendezvous of using music therapy would get me an invite to Rome.”
An Indira Gandhi Priyadarshini Award winner in 2005 Bhuyan performed her first jugalbandi with her mother in 1987 at the India International Center Delhi.
Her Joy of Giving repertoire consisted of a title song “Stand up for humanity, with little generosity, let’s feed the hungry, feed every little soul” was addressed to young people in fusion music style.
Salesians of Don Bosco numbering over 15,000 members is spread over 130 plus countries and the Daughters of Mary help of Christians (Salesian Sisters) too are spread in a similar way.