Pandit Madhup Mudgal
“Yes, this award makes one happy, but it is also a big responsibility to do still better. It is not a ‘full-stop’, but an inspiration to work further and harder,” says Pandit Madhup Mudgal, who has been awarded for his contribution to Hindustani classical music. “I have got other awards also like the Padma Shri and the Sanskriti Samman but if you ask me which one felt the most precious, it was the day my esteemed guru entrusted me to tune his tanpuras, and for the last 10-15 years of his life, I got the proud privilege of tuning his tanpuras for each and every performance. There can’t be a higher award or reward for me than this recognition by my own guru, taking into account his high standards of utmost tunefulness!”
Turning point
The music of Kumar Gandharva was the turning point in the musical journey of Pt. Madhup Mudgal.. Madhup was born in a musical family where his first Gurus were his own parents Pt. Vinay Chandra Maudgalya, fondly addressed by the musical fraternity as Bhai Ji and his mother, ‘Bhabhi ji’. He was further groomed by Pt. Jasraj and the other stalwarts who visited the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya (GMV), like Pt. K.G. Ginde and Pt. Dinkar Kaikini, but he confesses the realisation about true music came only after listening Pt. Kumar Gandhavra.
“Those were the days of Long Playing (LP) Records”, he continues, “ I listened to all his albums one by one and started of with playing just the Tanpura behind him during his performances for next ten years, soaking the essence of his music before I went to Devas and he actually started training me. The first few years there, went by just doing swarabhyas, practice of the swaras, because of his intense focus on purity of swaras and keenness on pitch perfectness of notes…”
Pandit Tejendra Narayan Majumdar
Sarod maestro Pt. Tejendra Narayan Majumdar feels grateful to be born in a family that injected spiritual samskar in him from a very young age. “My grandfather and father were both musicians who initiated me into classical music. I was a science student and did physics honours.”
The turning point came when he topped the AIR music competition and started singing from the All India Radio. “This was the time when stalwarts like Pt. Nikhil Bannerjee, Pt. Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Pt. Shankar Ghosh and Pt. Ajoy Chakravarty took notice of me and encouraged me to take music as a profession. He feels fortunate to have received in-depth training under gurus like Ud. Bahadur Khan and Ud. Ali Akbar Khan, who also encouraged him to unfold the mystery of ragas.”
“To be honest, the real criterion is your own assessment of yourself. If you do not proceed and progress further than what you played yesterday, the awards have no meaning. I don’t want to remain static,” says Majumdar.
Manjari Sinha
Pandit Tarun Bhattacharya
For santoor exponent Pandit Tarun Bhattacharya, whose musical journey negotiated the ups and downs for over four decades, “This was long since overdue. Nonetheless, I am elated that the news came on the auspicious day of Guru Purnima. I dedicate the award to my guruji, Pandit Ravi Shankar and also to my father Robi Bhattacharya who gave me the musical ambience at home and at his music school and my first guru Dulal Roy who initiated me to santoor.”
Chance meeting
A chance meeting with Pandit Ravi Shankar in 1982 shook Tarun Bhattacharya out of the cocoon of anonymity and placed him in international arena. “Once, Guruji was listening to my playing in the presence of the then director of ICCR who liked it and booked me for a seventeen-concert tour abroad. With Guruji, I went and lived in George Harrison’s house and played at his famed house concert, at Albert Hall, at Russia Bharat Utsav (1997); the list is endless. The mere association with Guruji changed my world overnight,” says Bhattacharya with deep veneration.
Malini Awasthi
Malini Awasthi
For Malini Awasthi who has been chosen for nurturing folk songs of Uttar Pradesh, the recognition has come as a surprise. “Even in my wildest dreams I could never imagine that I will be honoured for my unconventional passion,” she says.
“Initially, I had to swim against the tide. I had to wait till my own folks accepted the traditional, social and linguistic values of my chosen form of singing despite my classical grooming in music and academics under such gurus like eminent littérateur Vidya Niwas Mishra and musicians Shujat Hussain Khan, Rahat Ali and Ganesh Prasad Mishra. Yet I dedicate this award to all those women who encapsulated real Indian culture in these songs of the soil.”
Tales of struggle
Apparently, the seeds were sown when as a little girl she accompanied her grandmother every morning to Ganga at Mirzapur where several elderly women would come vibrantly attired in traditional dresses and singing ritualistic songs. At home, she would listen to her aunt who would sing ‘gharelu’ songs like tona, sohar, banna, haldi apart from local kajri, hori, etc. “I was so drawn towards the lyrics that I started collecting them. I realised that most of the songs tell tales of struggle and longing in the absence of their beloved, because Uttar Pradesh has a long history of seeing its menfolk migrating out to earn livelihood. Later when Gorakhpur’s newly established AIR Station started Bhojpuri music programme, I participated in it as a graded artiste. This inspired me to become a folk-artiste and also to learn from Appaji (Girija Devi).”
Malini winning spree in “SaReGaMa” reality show (1998) paled when she, with the blessings of Appaji, participated in another reality show in 2007 at Mumbai where she sang 36 varieties of folksongs. “What was termed as cheap, lurid and outmoded, gradually won acceptability here and in places like Berlin and Los Angeles, and it changed my life. I get invited to high-brow seminars as well,” she laughs happily.
Better late than never
Pt. Mani Prasad, the leading light of Kirana Gharanadoesn’t mind being awarded the SNA Award at the age of 87 years. “ There are so many musicians, your turn may get delayed, as they say, it’s better late than never! Otherwise, also this the age of networking and I am merely a ‘Sangeet-saadhak’. I am grateful my contribution is also acknowledged!”
Pt. Dinanath Mangeshkar was one of the many brilliant disciples of his father. “The Mangeshkar family treats us as their Guru Parivaar. I have taught many compositions to Hridaynath (Mangeshkar) and his children are still training under my nephew.”
He says one should concentrate only on ‘sur’, without bothering about what you get, or do not get out of it. “It is the path of sacrifice and you opt it by choice. I left the world of glamour and money, name and fame, composing for films and came back to my sur sadhana, but only one composition of mine, “Suniyo ji araj mori….” sung by Lata for ‘Lekin’ was enough to establish me as a memorable composer.”
On the secret of musicians coming to him for the finishing touch, Pt. Mani Prasad confesses, “Yes, I have chiselled many musicians, but that I do only after ‘Ganda-Bandhan’, accepting them as my disciples. The first thing is the voice quality and then the ‘sur ka lagav’, applying your voice to produce the accurate note. Multani should not intrude Todi and vice/versa. One should be able to properly discriminate between Puria, Marwa and Sohani.”
These days, he is teaching at the ‘Gangu Bai Gurukul. There also I insist on the purity of raga and swara. Ye ibadat ka kaam hai. shabdon mein nahin, sur mein dikhna chahiye Ram aur Krishna , the almighty. Only then the music touches the heart, which is the ultimate aim, not the awards!”
Meena Banerjee
