Bharat Ratna Bhimsen Joshi dies in Pune

Legendary vocalist Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, who enthralled generations of connoisseurs with his renditions of Hindustani classical music, passed away at a city hospital today after a prolonged illness.

He was 89.

A recipient of Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi had been put on life support system following old age-related ailments leading to kidney and respiratory failure after his admission to hospital on December 31, his family said.

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, the most-celebrated exponent of 'Kirana gharana' of Khansahib Abdul Karim Khan, leaves behind three sons and a daughter.

A pall of gloom descended on the city as the news of his demise spread with people making a beeline to his residence to pay their last respects to the singer who was the most powerful figure on the Hindustani music concert platform of 'khayal gayki'. Born on February 4, 1922 at Gadag in Dharwad district of Karnataka, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi got a boost to his career during a concert in Pune in January 1946 on the occasion of the 60th birthday of his guru Sawai Gandharva.

What distinguished him from the ordinary was his powerful voice, amazing breath control, fine musical sensibility and unwavering grasp of the fundamentals that made him the supreme Hindustani vocalist, representing a subtle fusion of intelligence and passion that imparted life and excitement to his music.

In the forays he made outside the classical fold, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi lent is voice as a "dhrupad" singer for a Bengali film based on the life of Tansen and later sang as a playback singer for Marathi film Gulacha Ganapati, produced and directed by celebrated Marathi humorist "Pu La" Deshpande in addition to Hindi movies Basant Bahar and Bhairavi.

But it was his 'Sant Vani' recitals, which bore the flair of Marathi 'Bhakti Sangeet' that added immensely to his popularity in both Maharashtra and Karnataka which have had a long succession of saint-poets.

He was honoured with the Padma Shri (1972), Sangeet Natak Akademi award for Hindustani vocal music (1975), Padma Bhushan (1985) and Madhya Pradesh government's "Tansen Samman" in 1992. Bharat Ratna was bestowed on him in 2008.

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi had undergone a surgery for removal of a brain tumor in 1999 followed by a cervical spine operation in 2005.

The maestro's last surprise public performance that regaled the audience was during 2007 'Sawai Gandharva' annual music festival which he himself had started to commemorate the memory of his guru. Pandit Bhimsen Joshi's body was taken to his residence where it would be kept for people to offer their last respects till this afternoon.

The final rites would be performed in the evening, family sources said.

Condoling the passing away of the maestro, President Pratibha Patil said, "In his death, the country has lost a greatest personality who was an exponent of vocal music."

CDS on Sale
PANDIT BHIMSEN JOSHI Golden Raaga Collection


BEST OF PANDIT BHIMSEN JOSHI: DEVOTIONAL SONGS


PANDIT BHIMSEN JOSHI Unsung Raaga Puriya

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi: A challenge unto himself

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi’s life and music is marked by his wanderlust: nothing ever stopped him from soaring into realms unknown. The legendary musician was the last link of the golden years of Kirana, however, he will continue to live in hundreds of musicians across the country

It’s not possible to sum up a musical icon’s career. At best it’s possible to trace his life — from birth to death. Pandit Bhimsen Joshi (1922-2011), the “high commissioner of music”, as the legendary Kirana vocalist jokingly called himself, is no more. A study of his music can never be complete — this is not only because of the highly intuitive nature of the Indian music tradition, but also because of the kind of musical persona that Bhimsen Joshi was.

Deeply passionate about music, Bhimsen Joshi was always a wanderer; in life and in music. His parents were subject to moments of great anxiety when their little son would often go missing from home. It started when he was three; he would either be sitting in the mosque before his house trying to grasp the notes in the muezzin’s prayer Allah O’ Akbar, or he would be at some nearby temple listening to the temple musicians, there were times when he, as if he were in a trance, followed bhajan mandalis and wedding processions — completely tuned to musical notes and switched off to everything else. On several occasions, his father Gururaj Joshi lodged a complaint with the police, but often some Good Samaritan would bring the little boy back to his parents. At 11, Bhimsen Joshi left home over a flimsy reason: he quarreled with his mother because she could not afford to serve him ghee with rice. He had stomped out, leaving his food untouched.

Long journey to Kirana gharana

This was the turning point in his musical quest. After listening to the pioneer of Kirana gharana Ustad Abdul Karim Khan saab’s gramophone recording of raga Jhinjoti in a nearby tea shop, his heart was set on learning from him. He stood at the Gadag station and took a train that was heading towards North India. He was penniless, but had to reach his destination. He gave a slip to ticket collectors moving between compartments, sang songs for fellow passengers and begged for food. He stopped at Pune, Bombay and finally reached Gwalior after three months! He met and learnt from various maestros, but was unsatisfied.

In search of a guru

He went from Kharagpur to Calcutta to Delhi and finally to Jalandhar where the Gwalior maestro Vinayak Rao Patwardhan advised him to learn from Sawai Gandharv, in Kundagol, an outstanding disciple of Ustad Abdul Karim Khan. Though he shared an exceptional relationship with Sawai Gandharv, it however did not mark the end of his quest. He worked very hard to earn his music. In the sixties, when Bhimsen Joshi sang for the Calcutta Music Circle, the famous actor Pahadi Sanyal was present in the audience. Once the concert was over, Bhimsen Joshi went up to the actor and reminded him that he worked as a domestic help for him in the years that he was looking for a suitable guru, much to the actor’s embarrassment.

Bhimsen Joshi’s intense passion for music made him a non-conformist of sorts. While he stuck to the traditional, limited repertoire of the Kirana gharana, he was open to ideas from other gharanas as well. Unlike his guru bandhu Gangubai Hangal who never swayed away from the boundaries of the gharana, Bhimsen Joshi, to use his own term, “processed all the commodities in the Kirana factory”. A firm believer of the guru-shishya tradition, Bhimsen Joshi would say, “What one learns from one’s guru has to be supplemented by individual genius, else, one will not have anything worthwhile to say. In fact, a good disciple should not be a second rate imitation, but a first rate improvement of his teacher.” Hence, you find LPs in which Bhimsen Joshi sings ragas like Chaya Malhar which is a stamp of the Gwalior school. Also Lalit Bhatiyar and Marwa Shree. He never hid his deep admiration for the Jaipur maestros — Mallikarjun Mansur and Kesarbai Kerkar. In fact, once Kesarbai Kerkar who had high regard for Bhimsen Joshi’s music, came for his concert and later jocularly remarked, “I came to see what all you have stolen from me!” Musicologists believe that the sonorous tonal quality of Bhimsen Joshi’s opening note, the shadja, was strikingly similar to that of Kesarbai. He never disputed it.

The Bhimsen style

Bhimsen Joshi’s music is made of many shades – contemplative and mellow, intuitive and erratic. He took the traditional Kirana ragas to highest level of complexity. His brilliant virtuosity was always coupled with romantic intensity. But Bhimsen Joshi was constantly stretching the thresholds; a man of obsessive restlessness, he often dared to challenge his own music. There were moments in his music when he knew it would fail, but he nevertheless surrendered to the test. Both his imagination and execution went into relentless ramblings, but the fear of the unknown hardly deterred him from exploring higher realms. That’s probably why he is the only Kirana maestro to have even attempted a raga like Ramkali.

Bhimsen Joshi preserved the various streams of past and tradition within him, with great humility and respect. In doing so, he constantly broke established idioms and infused them with new ideas. In fact, he was rebuilding tradition and in the process never hesitated to bare himself.

Bhimsen Joshi is a living tradition. His maverick genius may be hard to replace, but it’s hard for a practicing musician of today to not come under the spell of his influence. When you listen to musicians from various gharanas across the country, you invariably hear Bhimsen Joshi in them. Just like Pandit Bhimsen Joshi kept alive in his music Ustad Karim Khan, Sawai Gandharv, Roshan Ara Begum and many others. He continues to live in his music.

Ashwini Bhide Deshpande

Dr. Ashwini Raja Bhide-Deshpande (born in October 10, 1960) is a Hindustani classical music vocalist of the Jaipur-Atrauli Gharana.


Early life and training

Born in Mumbai into a family with strong musical traditions, Dr. Bhide-Deshpande started her early classical training under the guidance of Narayanrao Datar. She then completed her Sangeet Visharad from the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya. Since then, Dr. Bhide-Deshpande has been under the tutelage of her mother Smt. Manik Bhide, who has been instilling in her the intricacies and traditions of the Jaipur-Atrauli Gharana. Ashwini has inherited all that was best in her mother's style
and was able to add a lot to her repertoire with great sensitivity and intellect. Dr. Bhide-Deshpande also received guidance from one of the stalwarts of the Jaipur-Atrauli Gharana, Pt. Ratnakar Pai until his death in 2009.

Education

Dr. Bhide-Deshpande holds a Masters degree in Microbiology and earned a doctorate in Biochemistry from the University of Bombay.

Performing career

It was not until she completed her doctorate, when Dr. Bhide-Deshpande even considered a professional career in music. Despite, Dr. Bhide-Deshpande was well-received by musical connoisseurs since her late teens. Since the late 1980s, Dr. Bhide-Deshpande has been on concert tours to every continent and frequently performs at prestigious music conferences around the world, including the Sawai Gandharva Sangeet Mahotsav in Pune, Maharashtra.

She has performed in a number of prestigious music conferences in India for over fifteen years and has had successful concert tours of Europe and North America.

Musical style

Because of her strong influences from the Jaipur-Atrauli Gharanas, Dr. Bhide-Deshpande, has created her own musical style that respects the vocal culture and presentation aesthetics of the Jaipur-Atrauli Gharana. She holds a strong command over the three primary saptaks.

Composer

Dr. Bhide-Deshpande has an intimate understanding of Bandish and bandish-composition and has created many of her own bandishes, which she has published in her book, Raag Rachananjali.


Ashwini Bhide is not only a music scholar but is also blessed with a beautiful voice. I have personally known Ashwini since her early teens and it makes me so happy to see her blossom into such a wonderful Khayal singer. She has earned the reputation of being one of the top young artists of India... Having learnt many old compositions, she has been able to retain the spirit of the tradition through the dialects she has used as well as pay attention to the subject matter!
— Pt. Ravi Shankar

Students

Ashwini Bhide is also a powerful teacher, as well as performer and has taught a handful of distinguished disciples like Saniya Kulkarni-Patankar, Revati Kamat, Shruti Ambekar, Saili Oak, Shivani Haldipur, Dhanashree Ghaisas, and Poorvi Tonpay.


Soulful diva: Ashwini Bhide Deshpande