Dr. Suranjita Paul: Sharma Ji, please tell us whether your son or daughter were ever eager to be associated with this traditional profession?
Mangala Sharma Ji: See, if I as a guardian, am myself not confident in this profession, then how can I encourage my children to stick to the traditional profession? It is not possible for them to be in the same business because there is not enough earning in it. As a father, it is very difficult for me to afford a decent lifestyle, and in this situation, I cannot expect my children to be in this profession. They are young, and it is not the right thing to force them into it. As for myself, I have given them an opportunity to learn. My daughter has done her MPhil in Dhrupad from Rabindra Bharati University. She had also done her Masters from the same University. But what do you think she can do with that degree? The government of India has no provision for students who are educated in these lines! In Bengal, no school or college teaches these things where people like my daughter can teach. Where will they go? I don’t know why they have kept a department in Music if there are no job opportunities after getting the degree. The music departments of Biswa Bharati University at Shantiniketan or that of Rabindra Bharati University should be closed down. According to me, they are spending a lot of money on these departments unnecessarily, because the students cannot implement this knowledge anywhere in their future. One sits for his/her examination from Rabindra Bharati University or Biswa Bharati University with a lot of hope, but when it the face the job market, they are left with nothing. What is the point of getting the degree if they cannot feed their own stomach and lead a decent life? If this is the scenario, then why should one invest in taking lessons on making musical instruments? We the makers of instruments are crippled by the government, and I am sure soon this whole tradition of musical instrument making will become a heritage. There is no hope for the future generation to learn from it. After a few years, people will only know of us makers in books. It is so hard to find measurements of musical instruments we make and if there is no adequate income, then why will anyone be encouraged to embrace the profession? In ancient times, people who used to make musical instruments used to get a lot of facilities and thus they were happy in their profession, which resulted in brilliant instruments being made. Now we only enjoy music, but we don’t pay attention to the details of the profession.
Dr. Suranjita Paul: Sir, I think the new generation is not so eager to learn…
Mangla Prasad Sharma: If the government has provision, then one can have ways, without which, why will anyone want to be in this profession?
TRANSLATION: ANKANA DAS
Data processed at SAP-DRS Lab, Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University.
128/1A, Raja Ram Mohan Roy Sarani (Amherst Street), Kolkata – 700009
About the speaker
Mangla Prasad Sharma is a renowned manufacturer and exporter of Indian traditional musical instruments.
Tags
Heritage, Instrument, Demand, supply, Delhi, 2014, Work shop, Sangeet Natak Academy
Language
Bengali, Hindi, English
Mangla Prasad Sharma speaks:
Verbatim:
Dr. Suranjita Paul: Now your business is growing and is changing with time… Please tell us a few words about it…
Mangla Prasad Sharma: Because everything is on the verge of being known as heritage, we the musical instrument makers are also going to be heritage very soon. We are destroying our selves by destroying our own culture. Nobody these days come to learn to how to make musical instruments. If demand for these instruments in the market is not there, then we shouldn’t expect there to exist a supply, right? How can we make instruments if we are not getting enough income? I must say that India is losing in this regard, and not I as an instrument maker. I had been very verbal about it at Delhi to, when in an interview in 2014, I was asked to speak about my profession. It was at a workshop conducted by the Sangeet Natak Academy. Now you can see me making these musical instruments, but I am very sure that in a few years, people will read about it in books and only get to see it in photographs. Coming generations does not want to engage in this profession because there is no opportunity to flourish. It is a great tragedy for us that we cannot impart this knowledge about the making of these instruments to the young, and I think that we are very helpless in this regard. The government offers no help for us, though we can see them spending so much money, in lakhs and crores for music colleges, for the PSD, etc. But when it comes to the musical instrument makers, we are left with nothing. The Central Government or the State Government, both have proven to be highly inefficient in providing us with any sort of support. The Sangeet Natak Academy at Delhi had given me the opportunity to attend the workshop there. I was very happy to attend it, and I am very obliged to the Sangeet Natak Academy for this. In today’s world, no one has time to play these instruments, thus the fact that the Sangeet Natak Academy had called me for the workshop is itself a great thing for me. What I feel is, today, foreigners are more interested in Indian musical instruments than Indians themselves are, maybe because they get the opportunity to play these.
Translation: Ankana Das
Data processed at SAP-DRS Lab, Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University.
Amir Khan’s student was there, Viswajit Chakraborty, who used to come, but he is dead now.
When did he used to come?
He is dead now, but he used to come to me and I have worked for him. Sandhya Mukherjee’s guru, Jamini Ganguli, Ram Kumar Chattopadhyay, all used to come to me. Among the old people, I have had with me Bade Gulam Ali Khan. Also, Munawar Ali Khan used to come. His son, Raza Ali Khan comes to me even in present day. There is also Buddhadev Dasgupta, who I remember comes to me. Among older generations, there is no such artist who hasn’t come to me.
I have been repairing musical instruments for Akashbani since 1972. It was not a big thing for me to meet with renowned artists. Artists who used the Surbahar, Sitar, Sarod, all come to me and I try my best to satisfy them with my work. After all, if they are not satisfied with my work, they won’t employ me. And in the world of music, the one most important thing is blood relations. I have inherited the traditional profession of our family from my forefathers; otherwise it would have been very difficult.
In Kolkata, you are the only one who can make the Rudrabina, and we know there is no one other than you… Do Indian Rudrabina players still come to you?
In Calcutta, I know Rudrabina player Asit Kumar Bannerjee. At Udaypur, there is Raj Shekhar Vyas Ji. At Mumbai there is Bahauddin Dagar, son of Ziauddin Dagar, who plays the Rudrabina. There is also Subir Mishra, who is an IAS officer.
I think we have had him with us today…
No, today we have here Pandit Gopal Chandra Paul with us. I also remember Aminuddin Dagar, who used to come to me. Just a few days ago I worked for Zia Fariuddin Dagar. All the people from the Dagar family come to me. In the past, I have also worked for Biswa Bharati University at Shantiniketan, Rabindra Bharati University, Benaras Hindu University, and Delhi University.
Is the technique behind the making of the Rudrabina very different?
Rudrabina is a very different thing.
I mean, the Rudrabina that the Dagars play, the ones you have made, is it different in its measurement or is it same as other Rudrabinas?
Generally it is just the same. Just one tax has increased. Earlier there was present seven, but Ziauddin Dagar changed it to eight. Ziauddin dagar was the father of Ziauddin Mohiuddin Dagar, whose son was Bauddin Dagar. They are all traditional people from Jaipur, Rajasthan. And these are the people who created Dhrupad from their Gharana. In the past, I had worked for Ustad Asad Ali Khan, who used to live in Delhi. He was a Rudrabina player as well.
Carsten Wicke
Carsten, who now lives in Tollygaunge is also making himself known now. Almost twenty years ago I gave him his Rudrabina. He took his lessons from Asad Ali Khan. Now he sells recorded CDs of his own music. Twenty years ago he came to me with his Rudrabina in a very bad condition. I had repaired it for him and sent him to Asad Ali Khan for his lessons. Asad Ali Khan also used to come to me. He used to sit in this very spot. If our artists from India get opportunities to travel to foreign countries, it is my greatest pleasure.
Residence of Anindya Banerjee, 50/1A Purna ddas Road, Kolkata
About Anindya Banerjee
Disciple of ustd. Ali Akbar Khan, Ustd. Dhyanesh Khan and other gurus. He plays sarod and surshringar. He is a well known writer of Indian Music with several publications to his credit.
Tags
Hemen Sen, Hiren Roy, Muraribabu, sitar, sarod, rabab, Japanese instrument, Nikhil Banerjee.
Residence of Somjit Dasgupta Prof. Sanjoy Bandopadhyay, 3/1/1D, Padmapukur Road, Kolkata 700092
About Somjit Dasgupta
Disciple of Pt. Radhika Mohan Maitra. Preserving rare musical instruments including the instruments belonged to Pt. Radhika Mohan Maitra. He plays different instruments like Sarod, Surshringar, Mohan Veena, etc.
Tags
1960-61, Radhika Mohan Maitra, Dr. S.R. Chandra, Kramatullah Khan, 1962, Chhaya Bihag, National Programme, Nabadeepa, Durgalal Sharma, Mohanlal Sharma
Residence of Somjit Dasgupta Prof. Sanjoy Bandopadhyay, 3/1/1D, Padmapukur Road, Kolkata 700092
About Somjit Dasgupta
Disciple of Pt. Radhika Mohan Maitra. Preserving rare musical instruments including the instruments belonged to Pt. Radhika Mohan Maitra. He plays different instruments like Sarod, Surshringar, Mohan Veena, etc.
Sometimes, when he taught the techniques of playing sitar, he would play and teach.
-When was this?
This was in the early ‘50s. Nikhil Banerjee, Arun Chatterjee, Sunil Mukherjee, and Rajanikant Chaturvedi – these four were his disciples at the time. At this time, while he was playing the sitar, it might suddenly occur to him…someone had given a surbahar, it was in their room. So, he would show how to play that as well. He played the surshringar. At that time he might think…when he would train someone for the surshringar, he would teach all three types to Nrisinha babu. In the middle of that, he might think, how would it be if there was an instrument somewhere in the middle of these two. He had a sur rabab. But he never played it. He took the one Nrisinha babu had and played on it. That instrument is now with me. So, then he thought, what would it be like to make a new instrument? So he made something that was like the surbahar, but the body was made of calabash and wood. But the wooden body was cut like a calabash. Then it was covered with hide. The bridge was shorter than that of a surshringar, almost like that of a sarod. He said, “I have made an instrument after my own heart and taken the set of a surbahar, so I shall name it ‘Dilbahar’. He gave it for the first time to ArunChatterjee to play. He played it from the radio station in Patna.
Nabadeepa
Arunbabu passed away when he was quite young. He gave one to Rabi Sen and one is with me. This instrument, with its name, was created in 1956. It had been made a year before that, but it has been played, or was prepared to be played from ’56. No other recording of this instrument being played exists. When Arunbabu passed away, the instrument returned to Radhubabu. He gave it to Rabi Sen, but Rabi Sen never recorded for the radio. He made another instrument after this one. That instrument was called ‘Nabadeepa’.
Residence of Somjit Dasgupta Prof. Sanjoy Bandopadhyay, 3/1/1D, Padmapukur Road, Kolkata 700092
About Somjit Dasgupta
Disciple of Pt. Radhika Mohan Maitra. Preserving rare musical instruments including the instruments belonged to Pt. Radhika Mohan Maitra. He plays different instruments like Sarod, Surshringar, Mohan Veena, etc.
Tags
Surshringar, Vishnupur gharana, Nrishinha Prasad Mukhopadhyay, Pramathanath Bandyopadhyay, Veen, Surabab, Bhowanipur, Wajed Ali Shah, Kashim Ali Khan, 1924, Bhimpalashree, Madh Jor, Nasiruddin Khan.
Pandit Radhika Mohan Moitra’s three unique Surshringars and their cultivation was itself a story of that era. His first surshringar was the common one with broad plate and big gourd which he usually played with Ustad Ali Akbar khan. And the other two were designed by him by intermixing different rare instruments. That was supposed to be happened when he came across stalwart instrumentalists of that century specially the musicians of Vishnupur Gharana.
Radhika Mohan Moitra had close association with many noteworthy musicians. Therefore, many students of those noted musicians had come to Radhu Babu for Taalim. Among them, one promising student was Nrisingha Prosad Mukhopadhyay, Son-in-law of great instrumentalist of Vishnupur Gharana, Pramatha Nath Bandyapadhyay. Nrisingha Prosad used to play Surshringar and Sur-rabab; While Pramatha Nath Bandyapadhyay was expertise in instruments like Veena, Surbahar, Sitar, Surshringar and was also an efficient Dhrupad singer. He was very down-to-earth musician who always engrossed in music.
He used to live near the bank of river Ganges, not far away from the maternal house of Radhu Babu in Chakraberiya. Pramatha Nath Bandyapadhyay had taken rigorous taalim from several musicians like Kashim Ali Khan, Court musician of wajid ali shah and also from eminent Hindu instrument players.
Nabab Wajed Ali Shah
One incident relating Pramatha Nath Bandyapadhyay is worth mentioning here, though it was not happened in Kolkata. It was a historical event in the history of Indian music. In 1924, Pramatha Nath Bandyapadhyay got invitation in Ahmadabad Music Conference. Before his performance there, all the musicians attended the Conference came to an inference that Pramatha Nath Bandyapadhyay would perform any composition from Jatra which was much vogue in Bengal at that time. But with great astonishment, Pramatha Nath took five long hours rendering Alap and Madh Jod in Bhimpalashi and after that he modestly announce if the listeners were interested to listen further, he would definitely play the next following day. Stalwart musicians of different Gharanas like Nasiruddin Khan Dagar, Tansen Pande were amazed and sway away with the performance. After that mind blowing performance, several students started coming from outside Bengal especially from Pune to take lessons from Pramatha Nath Bandyapadhyay Pramatha Nath Bandyapadhyay was fascinated with the knowledge and playing techniques of Radhika Mohan Moitra. So he handed over his favourite disciple and Son-in-law Nrisingha Prosad Mukhopadhyay to Radhu Babu for taalim. He was then 96 years old. Radhu Babu was a devoted listener of Pramatha Nath Bandyapadhyay from his early life. Therefore, he took the responsibility very seriously to train Nrisingha Prosad after the death of Pramatha Nath Bandyapadhyay. Radhu Babu was very meticulous on his teaching process. He himself started practicing all three types of Surshringar, so that Nrisingha Prosad Mukhopadhyay would receive the best taalim. Samarendra Nath Shikdar had recorded many compositions of Nrisingha Prosad Mukhopadhyay in all India Radio but all of them were in wire tape recording, so none of them can be restored in present days.
