The Striped Kurta

Told by Sabyasachi Sengupta
Obtained by Sanjoy Bandopadhyay
Date 30 December 2014
Place Sangeet Bhavan, B.T. Road Campus, Rabindra Bharati University, 56A, B.T. Road, Kolkata 700050
On Sabyasachi Sengupta Tabla player, Guest Teacher at the Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University
Key-words 1978, Sealdah, Radha Kanto Nandy, Bhupalbabu, striped kurta,
Language Bengali

The Striped Kurta

Sabyasachi Sengupta speaks:

 

Data processed at SAP-DRS Lab, Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University.

Embarrassed Ignorance

Told by Samir Chatterjee
Obtained by Sanjoy Bandopadhyay
Date 29 December 2014
Place At Kolkata residence of Samir Chatterjee, 15A Gobinda Mondal Lane, Cossipur, Kolkata
About Samir Chatterjee Eminent tabla player, thinker. To know details click here
Tags Karamatullah Khan, Rampur, All India radio, folk sonf, Chandra Kanta nandi, Paritosh, 1982
Language English

Samir Chatterjee speaks:

 

Data processed at SAP-DRS Lab, Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University.

Towards Perfection

Told by Samir Chatterjee
Obtained by Sanjoy Bandopadhyay
Date 29 December 2014
Place At Kolkata residence of Samir Chatterjee, 15A Gobinda Mondal Lane, Cossipur, Kolkata
About Samir Chatterjee Eminent tabla player, thinker. To know in detail click here
Tags Shyamal Das, Chetla, tabla-maker, shreekhol, dedication, tabla-sound, 2001, making
Language English

Samir Chatterjee speaks:

 

Data processed at SAP-DRS Lab, Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University.

 

Be Specific, Don’t Compromise

Told by Samir Chatterjee
Obtained by Sanjoy Bandopadhyay
Date 29 December 2014
Place At Kolkata residence of Samir Chatterjee, 15A Gobinda Mondal Lane, Cossipur, Kolkata
About Samir Chatterjee Eminent tabla player, thinker. Click for details.
Tags Mushtaq Ali Khan, sitar player, 1984, riyaz, taalim, All India Radio, Rezakhani, tabla, sitar, thun, dhatun-nara, Paikpara, Nitai Bose, food
Language English

Samir Chatterjee speaks:

 

Data processed at SAP-DRS Lab, Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University.

Thoughts on Bandish Archiving

 

Told by Jon Barlow
Obtained by Sanjoy Bandopadhyay
Date 14 December 2014
Place At Kolkata residence of Jon Barlow 91/1B Bondel Road, Kolkata 700019 [Ballygunge Phari]
About Jon Barlow A man in pursuit of Indian Classical Music for more than fifty years. Learnt sarod, vocal music, music collector, music craftsman, photographer, artist, music theorist.
Tags 1972, 1973, Sangeet Natak Academy, sound archive, NCPA, Radhika Mohan Maitra, Narayan Menon, Arvind Parikh, recording studio, bandish, stories, anecdotes, D.T. Joshi, Jnan Prakash Ghosh, Vijay Kichlu, Bandish collections, 1974, Peter Row, Ford Foundation, 1979, SRA.
Language English

Bandish Recording and Archiving: Thoughts during early 1970’s

Jon barlow speaks

 

 

Data processed at SAP-DRS Lab, Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University.

 

 

 

No Payment No Music

Told by Parimal Chakraborty
Obtained by Sanjoy Bandopadhyay
Date 02 December 2014
Place Sangeet Bhavan, B.T. Road Campus, Rabindra Bharati University, 56A, B.T. Road, Kolkata 700050
On Parimal Chakraborty Well-known Tabla player, Guest Teacher at the Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University
Key-words Kala Mandir, Nikhil Banerjee, Shankar Ghosh, alap, 1970’s.
Language Bengali

Parimal Chakraborty speaks:

 

Data processed at SAP-DRS Lab, Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University.

Frozen Bayan at Dover Lane

Told by Parimal Chakraborty
Obtained by Sanjoy Bandopadhyay
Date 02 December 2014
Place Sangeet Bhavan, B.T. Road Campus, Rabindra Bharati University, 56A, B.T. Road, Kolkata 700050
On Parimal Chakraborty A well-known Tabla player, Guest Teacher at the Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University
Key-words 1989, Dover Lane Music Conference, Samta Prasad, 40 minutes, Vivekananda Park, Politics, Banaras, tabla, silent-baya, Raghunath Bhattacharya, dayan, bayan,

Parimal Chakraborty speaks:

Paraphrased in English

Frozen Bayan at Dover Lane

Told by: Parimal Chakraborty

Dover Lane Music Conference has always been the centre of many stories. In 1989 Dover Lane Music Conference used to be organised at Vivekananda Park. Samta Prasad from Banaras came to perform Tabla. He was assigned there for only 40 minutes to perform. He minded that Kolkata became only the place for politics and not for music.

A funny moment happened next day. It was a wonderful evening. A Kathak concert was going on by Balaka Ghosh. Raghunath Bhattacharya in Tabla was accompanying her. Total ambience was filled with the impact of the Jugalbandi. The audiences were also got totally submerged. In Tabla, Raghunathji was giving his ultimate presentation, full of embellishments in both Daya and Baya.

The performance was at its heights. Suddenly the sound of Baya stopped and the audience could only receive the bols ‘tete dhin na, tete dhin na’ of Daya that was echoing throughout the auditorium. Everyone in the hall was very astound and whispering about the matter. At that very moment Samta Prasadji, the Tabla maestro was entering the hall. He also heard the same.  In a great amazement he came nearer to the stage and asked Raghunathji about the Baya.  Raghunathji tensely answered that the Baya had been ruptured. Samta Prasadji very patiently suggested him to play in reverse mode. But Raghunathji was so nervous at that moment that could not understand the inner meaning of his suggestion ‘ulat ke bajaao’ and literally started playing the Baya by turning it over.

That was the most hilarious moment that anyone can love to recollect.

Author-Date [Reference]

Admin-II. 2014. “Frozen Bayan at Dover Lane.” Music Mapping of Kolkata. December 22. http://kolkatamusicmapping.com/frozen-bayan-at-dover-lane/.

Notes:

Dover Lane music Conference:

Dover Lane Music Conference is an annual Music festival. The conference is organised at Nazrul Manch, Southern Avenue, South Kolkata, on 22nd to 25th January each year. The festival started in 1952. Previously it used to organise at Dover lane under the patronage of Sri Late Narendra Singh Singhi, at his residence, Singhi Park.

About the speaker:

Parimal Chakrabarty is a renowned Tabla player of Kolkata and India. He started taking lessons in Tabla from his father Sri Nikhil Chandra Chakrabarty from the early age. Apart from this, he has also got talim from Ram Dhrubey, Sangeetacharya Guru Jnan Prakash Ghosh and also from another stalwart Pandit Sankar Ghosh. He is a Top Grade artist of All India Radio. He has accompanied with many eminent musicians of all over India.

Paraphrasing and notes by Dr. Suranjita Paul, Research fellow

Data processed at SAP-DRS Lab, Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University.

Against Time Wasting

Told by Angshubha Bandyopadhyay
Obtained by Sanjoy Bandopadhyay
Date 03 December 2014
Place Sangeet Bhavan, B.T. Road Campus, Rabindra Bharati University, 56A, B.T. Road, Kolkata 700050
On Angshubha Bandyopadhyay Tabla player, Guest Teacher at the Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University
Key-words Jnan Prakash Ghosh, 1990’s, namaskar, pranam, Ironside Road, time management

Angshubha Bandyopadhyay speaks:

Paraphrased in English

Against Time Wasting

Told by:   Angshubha Bandyopadhyay

It is a story about the strict discipline of Guru Jnan Prakash Ghosh. Throughout his entire life he strictly followed the values of Time. He firmly believed that time is like precious jewels, once gone, it never comes back. He never wanted to waste time even when it directly connects him. Probably it was  1990s. On Wednesdays all of his disciples used to gather in his Iron Side Road residence for Taalim. It is usual custom to touch Guru’s feet. So, they used to touch their guru’s Guru when they entered the classes. It is a very common practice in Indian tradition of Music. But Guru Jnan Prakash Ghosh was against that this kind of rituals. The reason was, for him a pranaam took precious two minutes which cut short his lesson-time and he could not tolerate this. He tried to forbid them from doing so, but the students did not take much notice of that.

One fine Wednesday morning, it was around 9 am to 9-15 a.m. Guruji came to his practice room with his unique chappals on his feet. All of his disciples stood up in respect and began to touch his feet. He immediately got furious and told them that he would not take their classes as they were not listening to him seriously. The class got postponed for the day. The students could now feel the significance of the situation. Helplessly they requested Mallar, Guruji’s son, to settle down the issue. Things were settle down gradually, and from that day his disciples became very cautious about wasting time for pranaam.

This is a memorable story of a Guru which a student would always love to remember.

 

Paraphrasing by Dr. Suranjita Paul, Research fellow

Data processed at SAP-DRS Lab, Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University.

 

Teaching Style of Jnan Prakash Ghosh-I

Told by Angshubha Bandyopadhyay
Obtained by Sanjoy Bandopadhyay
Date 03 December 2014
Place Sangeet Bhavan, B.T. Road Campus, Rabindra Bharati University, 56A, B.T. Road, Kolkata 700050
On Angshubha Bandyopadhyay Tabla player, Guest Teacher at the Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University
Key-words Jnan Pakash Ghosh, style, laya, bol, non-fixed, improvisation, tali, khali, reciting, Saurabh, 1996

Angshubha Bandyopadhyay speaks

 

Radio Impact

Told by Samar Saha
Obtained by Abishek Chatterjee
Date 17 November 2014
Place Samar Saha’s residence at the ITC-SRA, 1 N.S.C. Bose Road, Kolkata 700040
On Samar Saha Eminent Tabla Player. Attached to ITC-SRA, Kolkata
Key-words All India Radio, Betar Jagat, Subaddha Sangeet, 1982, Ajoy Chakraborty, Arun Bhaduri, Tejendra Narayan Majumdar, Kaunsi Kanhara, sarod, Munwar Ali Khan, Jorasanko, Rabindra Bharati
Language Bengali

Samar Saha speaks