Pt Dhruba Ghosh, one of the most innovative and great sarangi players, passed away in Mumbai earlier this week. Born in 1957, the second son of the famous musicologist Padma Bhushan Pt Nikhil Ghosh, and nephew of the pioneer of the modern bansuri, as we know it today, Pt Pannalal Ghosh, it was inevitable that Dhruba Ghosh too made his mark in the world of classical music. Apart from training in vocal music and tabla under his father, Dhruba Ghosh despite being a self-taught sarangi player – in his own words he took just one path changing lesson in sarangi technique from Ustad Sagiruddin Khan of Kolkata – made such innovations in sarangi playing that in 1989 at the first ever Sarangi Mela held in Bhopal, he was unanimously hailed by fellow sarangists as the most innovative player alive. He also learnt from Pt Dinkar Kaikani, and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.
New melody
There is no doubt that today the sarangi, hailed by none other than Yehudi Menuhin as the instrument “most poignantly and most revealingly expressing the very soul of Indian feeling and thought”, is today very rarely heard as a solo instrument, and in fact even as an accompanying instrument is limited to a few select vocalists from North India. The majority of vocalists from Maharashtra prefer the harmonium. Dhruba Ghosh spent his life trying to change this reality. He added an additional string to the sarangi, changed the gut used so that a performance could stretch till three hours and much more. He closely followed the path breaking style of the legendary Ustad Bundu Khan who apparently brought in tantrakaari techniques into the sarangi, raising it from a mere accompanying follower of the voice to an instrument capable of an independent stand. Ustad Sagiruddin Khan was one of his disciples, who apparently taught Dhruba Ghosh the unique technique of using all four fingers at the same time, bringing in much greater speed.
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Ghosh began his career touring as a sarangi player since 1974 on his father’s concert tours; from 1991 he toured exclusively as a soloist, and on collaborative concerts. His album with Paul Winter Consort, “Miho-Journey to the Mountains”, won the Grammy in the New Age Music Category, for his innovations, which included playing a new melody based on the sounds he heard humpback whales make, which corresponded to the pancham, gandhar and upper shadja. Ghosh and Paul Winter named it Whale raga.
He was later also awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi award. Dhruba Ghosh had also been at the core of the formation of a World String Orchestra in Japan involving the traditional bowed instruments of Japan, China, Korea, Uzbekistan and India. He had collaborated with western classical musicians like Phillipe Pierlot (Viola da Gamba), Jean Paul Dessy (cello), Francois Deppe (cello), Justin Pearson (cello), Yamashita (Jazz piano) and many more. He headed the Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan institute on Music in Mumbai for years, and was as articulate and persuasive a teacher as he was an inspired musician.