A journey from village to privilege
Lacuna Voices and Sunday People
Baluji Shrivastav OBE was just a baby when he was blinded by a neighbour. He tells his remarkable life story…
This week, I featured Baluji’s life story on my ethical true-life platform, Lacuna Voices. It told how as an eight-month-old in Utter Pradesh, Northern India, Baluji was on his way to the doctor with an eye infection, when his parents’ cart got stuck.
There, a well meaning villager rubbed a toxic potion onto his eyes to cure the infection, and bandaged his eyes up for three days. By the time Baluji’s mother removed them, his optic nerves had been destroyed.
Baluji’s blindness was permanent. At six, he joined a boarding school for the blind 300 miles away and it was clear immediately he had an innate and immense talent for music, and could recall songs and play any instrument he got his hands on with ease.
In adulthood, he left India for France, where he travelled and taught students sitar, then came to London with his future wife, poet and musician Linda.
Despite finding it impossible to secure a talent manager or agent, Baluji and Linda booked him gigs until eventually, pop superstars were lining up to work with the talented multi-instrumentalist and composer.
Baluji later setup a music foundation and Britain’s first professional orchestra for the blind and visually impaired. He has been made an OBE for his services to music, and Inner Vision Orchestra.
Following a tough 18 months of the pandemic, and the dreadful impact it had on self-employed creatives like Baluji and his musicians, he and the orchestra are back performing live around the U.K.
Read my piece in the Sunday People here, and the original Lacuna Voices’ article here.
