Arun Dravid

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Arun Dravid (born in 1943) is a Hindustani Classical Music singer of the Jaipur-Atrauli Gharana tradition. He is also a brilliant technocrat with an equally high profile professional career.

Arun's early training was under the tutelage of late Ustad Abdul Majid Khan Sahab, a direct disciple of late Ustad Alladiya Khan, and life-time Sarangi accompanist to late Smt. Kesarbai Kerkar. Arun then had several years of advanced musical training with 'Ganasaraswati' Smt. Kishori Amonkar, with occasional guidance from her mother and Guru, late Ganatapaswini Smt. Mogubai Kurdikar.

Arun Dravid has rigorously cultivated a balanced version of the “Bhava-dominant” style of Smt. Kishori Amonkar and the structural beauty that is the characteristic of the puritanical Jaipur-Atrauli Gharana gayaki. He is now recognized as an outstanding exponent of Jaipur-Atrauli gayaki in India and abroad. In her recent biography titled "Ganasaraswati" (page 61), Smt. Kishori Amonkar has specifically noted that Arunji is her only disciple who has preserved and continues to sing the pure Jaipur-Atrauli Gharana gayaki tradition. Arun also sings with equal charm light-classical varieties such as Thumris and Natya-Sangeet.

Shri Arun Dravid is an IIT-Bombay Gold Medalist and a Ph.D. chemical engineer from MIT (USA) by academic training. He has had an outstanding engineering career with numerous awards and distinctions. He is currently a Vice President of a large global engineering company named Jacobs Engineering Group in California (USA), and concurrently the Chairman of Jacobs Engineering India.