Ashwin J. Betai: A Journey from Rangoon to Hyderabad

Our harmonica lover this week is Shri Ashwin J. Betai who was born in Rangoon (Burma) and is now settled in Hyderabad. He is a 50 yrs old Gujarati businessman with a good sense of humour. There is never a meeting at Indira park when HaLoH members do not laugh at his funny jokes. He can play many instruments like Harmonica, Flute, Mandolin, Harmonium and Keyboard.

Ashwin ji developed the love for music during his childhood at Rangoon when his father used to play the harmonica. Later, their family shifted to Kolkata where he used to observe his uncle play the Mandolin. His uncle taught him to play the Mandolin. At the age of 17 or 18, on his request, his uncle gifted him a Hero harmonica and he started performing in college stage shows. Today, after being settled in Hyderabad for almost 30 years, he still plays the Harmonica and Flute in several programmes of his community.

Though he has Hohner Larry Adler 16, he still loves to play old Hindi melodies on his Tower harmonica. His 13 yr old son Yash A. Betai is learning to play the harmonica from our own fellow member Shri B. Vinayak who was a direct student of Milon da. Mr Vinayak teaches with notations and feels that Yash is picking up harmonica skills very fast and jokes that one day he may play better than his father.

Ashwin ji has a special inclination towards the wind instruments. He feels that even a sick person becomes well after listening to the sound of harmonica and flute.