The only qualification is curiosity. Last year, after Ramana Balachandran's veena concert, someone stopped me and said they had never heard the veena or the mridangam before. They had been, in their own words, completely transported — and found it all unexpectedly eye- and ear-opening. It is a phrase that has stayed with me, because it captures something I believe deeply: that this art does not require preparation to move you. It only requires presence. I think about that ev