Prof. DhanadaKanta Mishra
The news was hard to believe! MartandPanditJasraj is no more!
The doyen of Indian classical music has moved onto the other side where he willbe able to sing for the Gods! A Gandharv incarnate, he will now sing all the Upanishads, Stutis, Slokas, Meerabai, Tulsi, and Surdasbhajans to his heart’s content in the heaven of bliss!
We the mere mortals will be only left with his memory and thankfully recordings to bring him alive and keep us company, help us experience the divine as we suffer through the world gripped by the pandemic heading towards worse in form of climate catastrophe. He leaves behind a big vacuum and millions of his adoring listeners are heart-broken but he would want us to celebrate his life and music and even his parting coming the way it did with him singing and immersed in devotion till the end.
He lived a fulfilled life. Achieved everything a musician could ask for. Earned name and fame all over the world and every award that one could aspire for including the Padma Bibhushan.
He leaves behind a great legacy. His numerous students are well established and Mewatigharana is in safe hands.
He was 90 years old and was in New Jersey for the last few months. He breathed his last on the 18th of August. A journey that started from Hisar in Haryana on 28th January 1930 had come to an end in its physical form. He lives on forever through his matchless music and glittering legacy.
Among the many things I have received from SPIC MACAY (The Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth), one of the greatest gifts has been the privilege of knowing great enlightened souls like Pt Jasrajji. It is thanks to the chance of listening to him in a live concert in the USA that I fell in love with Indian classical vocal music. After attending each of his concerts, the compositions and the music will stay with me lingering for days. I could rarely get the same effect attending instrumental concerts or any other art form.
Whether it is his Madhurastakam or innumerable Krishna bhajans sung with such utter devotion, or the beautiful melancholic yet romantic ‘Chandra Badana Radhika’ in raagJaijaiwanti or the meditative ‘Mata Kalika’ to end performance, they all left an indelible mark on the listener and have set a benchmark for all future musicians.
It was in the year 1989 that I had just arrived in the USA for higher studies at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. SPIC MACAY had just come to America thanks to the efforts of Rao Rohit Singh who was based in California. Somehow I got hold of Rohit Bhai’s contact and wanted him to organize a famous artiste for the inaugural program of the Oklahoma chapter. And to our utter amazement, Rohit Bhai said we can have PanditJasraj for our inaugural concert!
We had no money, but we had a name that many people held in high esteem already by then. We went to work and made a list of all Indian sounding names from the telephone directory. After many calls and a lot of publicity on campus (no social media those days!), we had a very successful first concert and my long journey with SPIC MACAY and a lifelong relationship with Panditji started.
In 1991, I had moved to University of Michigan at Ann Arbor for my PhD and we had gone to receive Panditji at the Detroit Airport. I was overjoyed when Panditji chose to come with us to our dormitory instead of accepting the hospitalities on offer from many ‘millionaire’ fans of his! It showed his love for young volunteers, for SPIC MACAY and above all his earthy humility. Those few days having Panditji literally occupy my dorm room are the most unforgettable memories of my life. Serving all his needs to the best of our limited abilities, listening to him riyaz, discussing endlessly music and his life’s incredible journey enriched us greatly.
He gave to SPIC MACAY most generously performing all over India and the world for very little in terms of return except for love and affection. It was a great dream fulfilled for me when we could get him to come and perform in Bhubaneswar at the Indira Gandhi Park in 2016. Some say it was the biggest crowd for a classical music program in Odisha ever!
This is one more of the many unbelievable stories of PanditJasraj about a six-year-old boy he had never met shared by the boy’s father to a SPIC MACAY volunteer after his passing away.
Pt Jasraj is known as a legendary vocalist but when he performed at a wedding in 1946, he played the table, which was his first vocation. Mr. Khandekar, the father of the groom was passionate about Hindustani classical music and while he was not well off, he would put up travelling musicians at their home in Amravati, Maharashtra. Pt Jasraj was one of them.
The bride and groom lost touch with Pt Jasraj over the decades. Their son, Kedar, born in 1988 with severe cerebral palsy. When he was just a couple of years old, he took a great fondness to Hindustani classical music. Pt Jasraj’s numbers were his favourites. Kedar would gesticulate and insist on listening to them over and over again, from morning to night, and drive everybody quite mad.
In 1994, when Kedar was six years old, his grandmother got to know a student of Panditji’s who lived close by in Delhi and got his address. She wrote to Pt Jasraj (who lived in Mumbai) about Kedar and how obsessed he was with his voice. She ended by wishing he would drop by whenever possible and bless Kedar.
Some days later, the doorbell rang. When she opened the door, there was Pt Jasraj on the doorstep asking, “Where is Kedar?” As you can imagine, she thought she was hallucinating! Pt Jasraj had dropped in by without any hint. She was delighted but worried, too, because Kedar had gone as usual to a special school and wouldn’t return for another 30-45 minutes.
“No problem”, said Pt Jasraj, who made himself comfortable in the living room and talked of old times as he awaited Kedar’s arrival. When the driver finally carried back Kedar to thesecond floor home, Panditji greeted him warmly. He then asked about Kedar’sfavourite classical numbers and proceeded to sing a few.
She told us later that Kedar was mesmerized. One of the songs was the perennially popular Rani TeroChirjeeyo Gopal. This episode shows the human side of the great vocalist.
I remember once asking him while he stayed with us in the dormitory in Ann Arbor if he could see or experience God through his music? He said ‘Yes’ – he could get a glimpse once in a while at the peak of his riyaz or during the performance. But it was fleeting! The entire effort of his music was to hold on to that experience and have it happen more often! He has literally walked across to the other side while fully immersed in that quest.
SPIC MACAY and Pt Jasraj started a much-celebrated partnership almost right from the beginning of the movement. Prof Kiran Seth, founder of SPIC MACAY, described him as one who gave generously by agreeing to perform for SPIC MACAY without anything in return from the very beginning. He was the very face of the movement for a long time. One of the stories that always inspired me was the one where Dr Kiran Seth accompanied Pt Jasraj for a tour of Punjab at the height of militancy where he would perform in Gurdwaras known to harbor separatists with Prof Seth on tanpura!
One of my most favorites of his creation is the immortal composition set in raagBhairav – ‘Mero Allah Meherbaan’ about which an ardent listener says on YouTube, “by melting Allah and Om, Panditji has established in his own inimitable way how music is capable of dissolving the redundant boundaries of religions that cause human beings to alienate. God bless you Guruji, we are blessed to hear the voice of God.” Just this one composition itself makes him immortal and live in our hearts forever.
Only in June last, he was with us online in the Anubhav series. His passing away will no doubt leave a great void in the world of Indian music. But I have no doubt that no matter where ever he is, he would be blessing us and want us to celebrate his work and his music more than mourning the loss of his physical presence.
Rest in peace Bapuji! Jai ho!
DhanadaKanta Mishra is a professor in civil engineering by profession but a committed connoisseur and promoter of Indian classical music by passion. An established academician of Odisha and a social activist, he is currently a Visiting Research Scholar at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He has been a senior advisor to SPICMACAY and has been heading the SPICMACAY movement in Odisha.
