Our Story

Art, Heart,
You & Mind

A Bangalore-based trust weaving art into the everyday life of a neighbourhood — and through it, into the moral imagination of a community.

Ahum works in the field of connecting art and community so as to create a more sensitive and humane world. We believe art is as natural as sunshine and as vital as nourishment — and that its absence is felt most sharply by those who can least afford to seek it out.

100+Events Presented

2015Founded

80+Artists Supported

Our History

Where we come from

Ahum Trust was founded by Bharatanatyam dancer Anuradha Venkataraman and formally registered in Bangalore on 15 April 2015. The name says it plainly — Art, Heart, You and Mind. From the start, the conviction was simple: creative expression sits at the meeting point of intellect, emotion, and shared humanity, and it belongs to everyone.

Ahum launched with a theatre festival titled ONE — 5 Plays 5 Women at Alliance Française de Bangalore. Since then it has grown into a recognised cultural producer — running Swastika School of Dance and Music, the Kalakrida children's programme, Music by the Lake, Saturdays at Swastika, and collaborating internationally with Italian theatre company Instabili Vaganti on Dante Beyond Borders at Ranga Shankara.

Our Vision

What we believe

Art as a public good, not a luxury. Art, community, and nature as a single ecosystem — expressed most visibly in the monthly Music by the Lake series on the banks of Jakkur Lake. And equity of access: placing paying students and underprivileged children inside the same artistic ecosystem, not as separate worlds.

Our Principles

How we work

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Place

Almost everything Ahum does is anchored in Jakkur — the lake, the local schools, the GKVK neighbourhood. Place-based depth gives our work unusual continuity and trust.

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Access

Kalakrida covers food, transport, and all costs so that participation imposes zero burden on parents. Art is a public good, not a privilege.

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Continuity

Paying students at Swastika School and underprivileged children in Kalakrida exist inside the same artistic ecosystem — not as separate verticals.

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Reach

From intimate baithaks in Jakkur to international co-productions at Ranga Shankara, Ahum holds national-quality artistic standards at neighbourhood scale.

Education

SwaSTIKA School of
Dance & Music

Swastika School of Dance and Music offers training in Bharatanatyam, Odissi, Kathak, Carnatic Vocal, Art, and Yoga at our Jakkur studio. Rated 4.6 on Justdial, the school is rooted in the guru-shishya tradition — where the relationship between teacher and student is the heart of learning.

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Art, Heart,You & Mind