Bhimsen Joshi: A legendary voice stilled
Bharat Ratna Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, one of India’s greatest contemporary Hindustani vocalists, passed away in Pune today. Long time personal friend, biographer and former music critic of the Times of India, Mohan Nadkarni, pays this personal tribute from Auckland, New Zealand.
Auckland: So, Bhimanna has sung his final Bhairavi. It’s the end of an era. I am at a loss for words: what do I say, how to say. But it is perhaps good that he has finally passed on because I hear he had been suffering these past few months.
There will simply not be another like him any time soon – perhaps never ever. He would have been 89 on Rathasaptami day next month [which falls on February 10]. I was seven months his junior and have known him since the early 1940s when we were just in our twenties.
I first heard him in the week of his 21st birthday February 16, 1943, to be precise. For I cannot forget that radio broadcast on All India Radio, Bombay. I still remember the schedule of 3 sittings of 20 minutes each: Miyan Ki Todi in the morning (Daiya Bat Dubar); then raga Marwa (Ab Mil Aaye) at dusk; and finally, raga Puriya (Piya Gunawanta), later in the evening.
Like me, whoever might have heard these radio sessions would have been left in no doubt that a brilliant star had risen on the musical horizon.
Few contemporary Hindustani vocalists have come to enjoy such stupendous popularity and for so long as Bhimsenji. He was instantly popular and never have I seen a seat vacant at any auditorium in any town that I have attended. In fact, I have seen crowds spill over outside the auditoriums, people listening to his Miyan Malhar braving winds and heavy downpours, cowering under umbrellas.
In the course of his incredible climb to greater and still greater heights, Bhimsenji’s approach to Khayal music has undergone many significant changes, which have evoked diverse reactions from his audiences. I am inclined to view the changes in his vocalism against the background of the qualitative changes witnessed on the wider musical scene after the attainment of India’s political freedom.
Bhimsenji’s great musical moments are unforgettable. Indeed, at such moments he revealed a rare genius – when the spirit seized him in his creative ecstasy. Behind the powerful voice, amazing breath-control, fine musical sensibility and an unwavering grasp of the fundamentals lies something that could only be termed sui generis.
The observation made by the celebrated author E.M. Forster comes to mind in this context. To him, music was of two types: One, that reminded him of something, and the other, “music itself”. Bhimsenji symbolises the latter type – he is music itself. In this sense, I place him in the brilliant galaxy of some of the all-time greats whom I have heard for the last five decades and more, and who, too, evoked an identical reaction in me.
Most of them, alas, have passed into oblivion. And now Bhimanna has joined them.
This is equally true of the widening singing repertoire strictly outside the Hindustani traditional fare- like his “Sant Vani” in Marathi, Kannada, Hindi; the Marathi stage hits; his playback singing, and his scoring music for Marathi stage presentations.
Over the decades, I have written countless articles about him, reviewed dozens of his concerts throughout India and written notes on his long play records, cassettes and CDs. Over that time our musical acquaintance matured into personal friendship, close enough to be on abusing terms!
I wrote his biography at his request just after he turned 60. That book has run into several editions over the years and has been translated into several Indian languages. I last wrote about him recently when he was conferred the Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian award.
One of his most enduring images in the Indian mass media would have to be his appearance in the celebrated Doordarshan feature, “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara”, devised to promote national integration. It deservedly earned him incredible acclaim.
His impassioned utterance, the complete identification of the man with his music is what made Bhimsenji Joshi the unrivalled Hindustani vocalist of our time.
Bhimsenji was a man who loved and lived his life with all his romance and intensity and one who sought to reflect it so eloquently in his music – be it classical, light classical, devotional or the popular variety, like the Doordarshan number.
May God give his family, his large musical family and his millions of fans around the world the strength and the courage to bear this irreplacable loss. I will try to replay that 1943 All India Radio concert in my mind as I have done many times over the years. Only, this time in the knowledge that hs is no longer amongst us.
Rest in peace, Bhimanna.
--
Mohan Nadkarni has been the music, theatre and art critic of the Times of India for over 55 years. He is a renowned musicologist and has written several books including the biography of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, published by Harper Collins (London), which is in its fifth edition and still a fast seller on Amazon.com. The government of India and the state government of Karnataka have conferred several awards on him. Now 88, he lives in Auckland.
Bharat Ratna Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, one of India’s greatest contemporary Hindustani vocalists, passed away in Pune today. Long time personal friend, biographer and former music critic of the Times of India, Mohan Nadkarni, pays this personal tribute from Auckland, New Zealand.
Auckland: So,...
Bharat Ratna Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, one of India’s greatest contemporary Hindustani vocalists, passed away in Pune today. Long time personal friend, biographer and former music critic of the Times of India, Mohan Nadkarni, pays this personal tribute from Auckland, New Zealand.
Auckland: So, Bhimanna has sung his final Bhairavi. It’s the end of an era. I am at a loss for words: what do I say, how to say. But it is perhaps good that he has finally passed on because I hear he had been suffering these past few months.
There will simply not be another like him any time soon – perhaps never ever. He would have been 89 on Rathasaptami day next month [which falls on February 10]. I was seven months his junior and have known him since the early 1940s when we were just in our twenties.
I first heard him in the week of his 21st birthday February 16, 1943, to be precise. For I cannot forget that radio broadcast on All India Radio, Bombay. I still remember the schedule of 3 sittings of 20 minutes each: Miyan Ki Todi in the morning (Daiya Bat Dubar); then raga Marwa (Ab Mil Aaye) at dusk; and finally, raga Puriya (Piya Gunawanta), later in the evening.
Like me, whoever might have heard these radio sessions would have been left in no doubt that a brilliant star had risen on the musical horizon.
Few contemporary Hindustani vocalists have come to enjoy such stupendous popularity and for so long as Bhimsenji. He was instantly popular and never have I seen a seat vacant at any auditorium in any town that I have attended. In fact, I have seen crowds spill over outside the auditoriums, people listening to his Miyan Malhar braving winds and heavy downpours, cowering under umbrellas.
In the course of his incredible climb to greater and still greater heights, Bhimsenji’s approach to Khayal music has undergone many significant changes, which have evoked diverse reactions from his audiences. I am inclined to view the changes in his vocalism against the background of the qualitative changes witnessed on the wider musical scene after the attainment of India’s political freedom.
Bhimsenji’s great musical moments are unforgettable. Indeed, at such moments he revealed a rare genius – when the spirit seized him in his creative ecstasy. Behind the powerful voice, amazing breath-control, fine musical sensibility and an unwavering grasp of the fundamentals lies something that could only be termed sui generis.
The observation made by the celebrated author E.M. Forster comes to mind in this context. To him, music was of two types: One, that reminded him of something, and the other, “music itself”. Bhimsenji symbolises the latter type – he is music itself. In this sense, I place him in the brilliant galaxy of some of the all-time greats whom I have heard for the last five decades and more, and who, too, evoked an identical reaction in me.
Most of them, alas, have passed into oblivion. And now Bhimanna has joined them.
This is equally true of the widening singing repertoire strictly outside the Hindustani traditional fare- like his “Sant Vani” in Marathi, Kannada, Hindi; the Marathi stage hits; his playback singing, and his scoring music for Marathi stage presentations.
Over the decades, I have written countless articles about him, reviewed dozens of his concerts throughout India and written notes on his long play records, cassettes and CDs. Over that time our musical acquaintance matured into personal friendship, close enough to be on abusing terms!
I wrote his biography at his request just after he turned 60. That book has run into several editions over the years and has been translated into several Indian languages. I last wrote about him recently when he was conferred the Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian award.
One of his most enduring images in the Indian mass media would have to be his appearance in the celebrated Doordarshan feature, “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara”, devised to promote national integration. It deservedly earned him incredible acclaim.
His impassioned utterance, the complete identification of the man with his music is what made Bhimsenji Joshi the unrivalled Hindustani vocalist of our time.
Bhimsenji was a man who loved and lived his life with all his romance and intensity and one who sought to reflect it so eloquently in his music – be it classical, light classical, devotional or the popular variety, like the Doordarshan number.
May God give his family, his large musical family and his millions of fans around the world the strength and the courage to bear this irreplacable loss. I will try to replay that 1943 All India Radio concert in my mind as I have done many times over the years. Only, this time in the knowledge that hs is no longer amongst us.
Rest in peace, Bhimanna.
--
Mohan Nadkarni has been the music, theatre and art critic of the Times of India for over 55 years. He is a renowned musicologist and has written several books including the biography of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, published by Harper Collins (London), which is in its fifth edition and still a fast seller on Amazon.com. The government of India and the state government of Karnataka have conferred several awards on him. Now 88, he lives in Auckland.
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