The sau-rangi of Ram Narayan

A year after his demise, the sarangi sounds like pining to get back its most impactful virtuoso

Sreevalsan Thiyyadi

Updated At : 05:01 AM Nov 16, 2025 IST

Pt Ram Narayan raised the sarangi’s status in Indian classical. Tribune file photo

In hindsight, Pandit Ram Narayan’s sarangi resonated with his own past as a happy mix of rural and urban sensibilities. A dreamy lull in his wandering glides was a reminder of the late master’s childhood in the expansive Rajasthan countryside. On the other hand, an acquired cosmopolitanism lent digitised precision to those speedy gaits along the strings. For the record, the classical musician (1927-2024) hailed from heritage-dense Udaipur, but spent much of his life in bustling Bombay — after brief stints in Lahore and Delhi. This month marked the first death anniversary of the Hindustani instrumentalist.

The maestro blended binaries in more ways than one. The meditative depths of his dhrupad artistry didn’t stop Ram Narayan from engaging with Bollywood numbers. Neither did the wizard shy away from imbibing techniques he noticed during decades of brush with western musicians.

Ram Narayan’s celebrated renditions of seven-note Kirwani, for instance, particularly exemplified his eclecticism. There, he delivered a Carnatic-origin raga to the beats of symmetrical teen-taal upcountry, amid aggressive streaks typical of symphonies in the harmonic minor scale.

His vocals, however low-profile, underscored an obsession with tonal clarity. Curiously, when he sang, Ram Narayan’s voice was less nasal than when he spoke.

A Padma Vibhushan awardee, Ram Narayan could converse in English as well, thanks to exposure to worlds beyond his native Amber village of Mewar region. The boy could sing well too: his father was a musician. Nathuji Biyavat played the dilruba (which holds vitality in Sikhism) during his leisure as a farmer. His elder son Chatur Lal went on to gain expertise in the tabla.

When Ram Narayan was around five years old, he stumbled upon a short-necked instrument abandoned in one corner of their house. That turned out to be a sarangi. Nathuji got it repaired on noticing the child’s interest. At school, Ram Narayan discontinued studies when his teacher punished the boy in a way that pained his palm. As bowing and fingering techniques formed central to playing the sarangi, Ram Narayan told his father back home, “Enough is enough.” The parent readily agreed.

This nod is surprising as one looks back to the 1930s. For, the sarangi wasn’t then a pivotal instrument. The handier harmonium had begun to phase out the sarangi as the main accompaniment for Hindustani vocals around the dawn of that century under the British rule. Nathuji taught the prodigious Ram Narayan the basics of the instrument.

All of 10, the boy was taken to Uday Lal, an ageing local master of the instrument. After a while, the guru died. Ram Narayan found a khayal mentor in travelling singer Madhav Prasad.

The Punjab link

At the age of 16, Ram Narayan’s budding career got a decisive turn when he travelled to Lahore (of undivided Punjab). All India Radio, in 1943, asked him to sing, but the “rusty voice” failed him at the audition. As “consolation”, the authorities let him play the sarangi. Impressed, they hired him as an instrumentalist. The station’s music producer, Jiwan Lal Mattoo, referred Ram Narayan to Kirana gharana vocalist Abdul Wahid Khan. The ensuing lessons improved Ram Narayan’s felicity with key ragas.

In 1947, Partition prompted Ram Narayan to leave Lahore for Delhi. There, he’d share stage with sarangist Bundu Khan (1880-1955) during the evening concerts for Mahatma Gandhi at Birla House. In 1949, the youngster shifted to Bombay, paying heed to veterans Omkarnath Thakur and Krishnarao Shankar.

The next year, he cut three HMV records of classical solo, tired of the subservience expected from the sarangi at Hindustani concerts. The financial capital gave him chances to work in Hindi movies.

Ram Narayan’s music to the tinsel world spanned 15 years, boosted by hits such as ‘Madhumati’ and ‘Mughal-e-Azam’. Then he cut down on cinema massively. “I got enough money,” he’d say. “Now I can get back to my sarangi.”

The next six decades saw Ram Narayan raising the sarangi’s status in Indian classical and popularising its eminence the world over. Sibling Chatur Lal was sometimes his percussionist abroad as well. Ram Narayan collaborated with experimentalists, simultaneously reforming the vintage instrument. Yet none dubbed him “unconventional”. The master’s son, Brij Narayan, picked the sarod, but daughter Aruna and grandson Harsh are reputed sarangi players.

Ram Narayan used to feel amused when some sensed pathos alone in the sarangi’s long draws. “Illiteracy,” he’d refute with a guffaw. “The instrument is actually sau-rangi. It can generate a hundred hues (of emotion).” True. Yet a year after his demise, the sarangi sounds like pining to get back its most impactful virtuoso.

— The writer is an art critic

The sau-rangi of Ram Narayan

A year after his demise, the sarangi sounds like pining to get back its most impactful virtuoso

Sreevalsan Thiyyadi

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