I was going
through the profit and loss accounts of 2011 and the most vital lossto the
nation was that of the maestro Bhimsen
joshi, the more than great kannadiga born vocalist . Made literally a household
name after his “Mile sur mera tumara”,
Panditji has sang prodigiously for Hindustani music. Where I go to buy
my cassettes there are rows and rows of
panditji’s cassettes on every conceivable raga. Belonging to kirana Gharana,
this student of Savai Gandharva Maharaj
was beloved of the music aficionado. As a child, music had such a
magnetic pull over him that a 'bhajan singing' procession or just 'azaan' from
a nearby mosque was said to draw him out of house. In 1933 When 11-year-old Joshi left Dharwad for Bijapur to
find a master. Recognizing an early urge for the love of music he ran off to
Gwalior in search of a Guru to learn
under. In his quest to finding his true vocation he did various chores like
singing Bhajans to fellow passengers and to the ticket collector to pay his
travel money to Gwalior.
Bhimsen's guru Sawai
Gandharva was the chief disciple of Abdul Karim Khan, who along with his cousin
Abdul Wahid Khan was the founder of the Kirana Gharana school of Hindustani
music. In 1936, Rambhau Kundgolkar (alias Sawai Gandharva), a native of
Dharwad, accepted the boy as a
disciple and joshi stayed Gurukul style at the residence of his
Guru Savai Gandharva Maharaj to learn music..
Bhimsen joshi, performed all over the world and his
repertoire of singing was well appreciated by all music lovers. His speciality
was the khayal form of singing, and
Joshiji was appreciated as well as for his popular renditions of devotional
music (bhajans and abhangs). He was the most recent recipient of the Bharat
Ratna, India's highest civilian honour. Four other musicians who have received
this are M.S. Subbalaxmi, Lata Mangeshkar, sitar maestro Ravishanker and
Shehnai maestro Bismillah Khan.
Joshi ji first performed
live in 1941 at the age 19. His debut album, containing a few devotional songs
in Kannada and Hindi, was released by HMV,the next year in 1942. When he was
22, HMV released his first recording of bhajans. It was a success, and he went
on to make many more. Later Joshi moved
to Mumbai in 1943 and worked as a radio
artist. His performance at a concert in 1946 to celebrate his guru Sawai
Gandharva's 60th birthday won him accolades both from the audience and his guru.
Bhimsen Joshi's music was
hailed by both the critics and the masses. The Hindu, in an article written
after he was awarded the Bharat Ratna, said:” Bhimsen Joshi was ever the
wanderer, engendering brilliant phrases and tans more intuitively than through
deliberation”. Joshi occasionally
employed the use of sargam and tihaais, and often sang traditional compositions
of the Kirana gharana. His music often injected surprising and sudden turns of
phrase, for example through the unexpected use of boltaans. Over the years, his
repertoire tended to favor a relatively small number of complex and serious
ragas; However, he remained one of the most prolific exponent of Hindustani
classical music.
Some of Joshi's more popular ragas include
Shuddha Kalyan, Miyan Ki Todi, Puriya Dhanashri, Multani, Bhimpalasi, Darbari,
and Ramkali. He was considered a purist and has not dabbled in experimental
forms of music, except for a well-known series of Jugalbandi recordings with
the Carnatic singer M. Balamuralikrishna. When asked about the present gener of
singers he said there are too many singers now and very intelligent ones too
but their singing did not touch your heart.
Joshi was most acclaimed for his Kannada, Hindi and Marathi Bhajan
singing. His commercially successful CDs Daaswani and Enna Paliso included
Kannada Bhajans, and Santawani included Marathi Abhangs.
Bhimsen Joshi was known
for his powerful voice, amazing breath control, musical sensibility and grasp
of the fundamentals, representing a subtle fusion of intelligence and passion
that imparted life and excitement to his music. A classicist by training and
temperament, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi was renowned for having evolved an approach
that sought to achieve a balance between what may be termed as
"traditional values and mass-culture tastes" and as such he went on
to have supposedly the largest commercially recorded repertoire in Hindustani
vocal music.. Yet there was always the possibility of something stylistically
unexpected or joyously wayward emerging during a recital.
Though by birth a
Brahmin, he was anti-elitist and believed that classical music belonged to all
the.castes, religions and classes of India. After a big concert break in
January 1946, his star rose, especially thanks to his command of the khyal song
style. As Sheila Dhar wrote in Raga 'n' Josh (2005), audiences "simply
worshipped" him. However, Joshi was not exclusively a classical performer.
He sang for films. One, Ankahee (1985), had particular resonance; it won ;him a
national award for singing.its plot hinged on the source of his surname –
jyotishi, a practitioner of jyotish, or astrology. Recognised as a completely
intuitive musician, he never played to the gallery. It was his ability to
become immersed in his music His art transcended the fineries of Gharana.
His became a style of
his own. To a majority of lovers of Khyal music his voice, his singing
style became the benchmark by which they
informed their musical sensibilities. A rare Maestro who had no ego, no
tantrums, just a lot of quiet dignity, a man of simple needs and no demands! He
was at peace with his achievements and his craft, in tha, he did not seek any
approvals, any awards. Even during his performances, at the end of each item,
he would not wait for the applause to die down before he would move on into the
start of his next rendering - so un-preoccupied he was with his own ego. Once
when barely 100 people turned up at a busy week day concert of his in London,
responding to an apologetic promoter he simply said it did not matter to him if
there were 10, 100 or a 1,000 people in his audience. He would be still giving
them his utmost! He would not be affected or offended by the size of his
audience.
There is an incident worth mentioning . He was to sing for the movie
Basant Bahar and have a dual with Mannadey. Mannadey was overwhelmed by the
occasion. Sing with the great panditji and also the story demanded that he
outsing panditji in the dual where the character playing panditji’s role
accepts defeat. This was unthinkable for Mannadey . but then panditji gave him confidence , “we will work it out
somehow and if I have to lose then I will have to lose.” Later it seems
panditji patted Mannadey on the back and
appreciated his singing. “panditji is awesome. His range of voice is
unbelievable. I did try to emulate his style of singing but would soon become
breathless. It has to be god given and nothing else. “
A similar thing
was to happen later but in the reverse.
For the movie Padosan , Mannadey had a classical dual with kishorekumar and is
supposed to lose in the script. This was not acceptable to Mannadey to lose to
Kishore in classical singing . and it required much persuasion on the part of
Panchamda and the producer Mehmood to convince mannadey to lose .
We all mourn
the great loss to Indian music by passing away of Padmashri, padmabhushan,
Padmavibushan ,Bharat Ratna adorned Maestro Panditji.
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