A tribute to his golden career
By Latif Nakhwa

THIS year marks the golden jubilee of a major "jewel" in Hindustani classical music — Pandit Bhimsen Joshi. A vocalist of the Kirana tradition, he is well past 75. And yet, the timbre and tenor of his voice remain as resonant as they were 50 years ago.

When he takes to the stage, he does not need a microphone — unless of course, it is an open-air show. He sings from the very depths of his being, packing power into every syllable, before directing his voice at the far end of the auditorium. That is what makes him so special.

At a recent concert in Bombay, where Joshi was felicitated, the audience was driven to tears by the sheer power of his voice. "It is just amazing," Manik Bhede, a well-known critic, remarked. "I have heard this main singing for the past 40 years. His voice has not changed one bit."

Son of a schoolmaster, Joshi was born and brought up in Gadad, an obscure village in Dharwad district of Karnataka. As he recalls now, his interest in music developed from a gramophone shop in Gadad Bazaar, which fell on the way to his school.

The shop owner was obviously a fan of Ustad Adbul Karim Nagarkar, a popular vocalist at the turn of the century. He played his records regularly and somehow, as a child, Joshi got hooked to the voice. He began bunking school to be able to listen to Nagarkar at the gramophone shop.

"I must have been about 11 years old when I realised that spending another five or ten years in school wouldn’t take me anywhere," narrates the maestro. "I wanted to be Nagarkar. He was my childhood hero. Another was Pandit Ramnarayan Das. I left home in search of them...."

Joshi had never travelled by train before. But as a child he knew that the fastest way to get out of reach of his parents was by rail. For three years, between 1933 and 1935, he travelled ticketless across the country, in search of his music guru.

One day he found himself in Calcutta. He enrolled himself with sarod wizard Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan, then switched to vocalist Krishnarao Shankar Rao. Then the film bug bit him. He started working in the house of cine-actor Pahari Sanyal of New Theatres.

"It was great fun", recalls Joshi. "I had to cook, draw water from the well, run errands... and in return, I got two square meals a day. It was a luxurious life. But soon, I realised I was wasting my time. I hadn’t found my guru yet."

So once again, he took off —but this time, with the intention of returning home in Gadad. His parents were only too anxious to celebrate the return of the prodigal. But the latter made his intentions clear instead of going back to school, he would pursue music as a career.

His father enrolled him as a student of Pandit Rambhau Kundgolkar, better known as Sawami Gandharva. Over seven years, Joshi served as a disciple to the guru at Kundagal and learnt the nuances of the Kirana gharana singing.

In 1944, he set out on a tour of Uttar Pradesh to refine his art. Among those who influenced him during that phase were Ustad Mushtaq Husain Khan of Rampur, Siddeshwari Devi and Rasoolan Bai of Benares and queen of ghazals Begum Akhtar in Lucknow.

"Begum Akhtar recommended me for the job of a staff artiste with All India Radio, Lucknow," reveals Panditji. "In those days, the salary was a princely Rs 32 a month. It was my first and only job I have held in my life."

But with the World War closing in on India and India being partitioned by the British, Joshi had to abandon his job and return home at Gadad. There in 1949, he sang at a concert held in the honour of Sawai Gandharva and after that, there has been no looking back.

Having captured the hearts of millions of fans across the globe and honoured by countless awards, Joshi has acquired the stature of Bhishma Pitamah (after the invincible patriarch in the Mahabharata) of Indian music.

Yet in all humility, he places himself as a child of Saraswati. "The Goddess of Learning has been very kind to me," he reflects. "If it were not for her blessing. I could not have attained even half of what has come to me." (MF)