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.

It’s just a personal anecdote about chance and I suppose fate. It is the recollection of my first encounter with Radhika Mohan Maitra, when I first visited Calcutta in 1971 to buy a musical instrument. I had been to Maihar in 1968-69 for a few months but found Allaudin Khan very old and frail. I was with my fellow Australian friend Alan Posselt who actually had some lessons with the old man but mostly we learned from Mr David, a Sri Lankan who was charged with the unenviable job of keeping the Allaudin Khan School there up and running and the Maihar Band in practice. It would be fair to call the learning process a bit desultory but we had a great time with visiting with Khansaheb and watching the Maharaja with a pop-gun chasing langurs off the tin sheets that he had covered decaying branches of his palace with. Shortly after this time I was living in  London where I made a quite respectable sarod from an  Elm wood log that a friend of my father had given me, it was half invented half reconstructed from a few instruments I had seen and though eccentric it was a fair stab in the dark. Studying sarod was important to me but I had no clear idea or instinct about what to do next. All I knew was that I wanted to get a good instrument as the one that I had bought in Delhi was miserable and the first instrument I had made was bizarre.  Everyone said you have to go to Calcutta and ask Hemen to make a good instrument, so finally I resolved to do just that. In Australia before leaving I got to know a chap by the name of John Bucklow who had befriended  Radhubabu when the latter went to

Australia as the leader of an Indian cultural mission sent by the Government of India in, I think, 1962 or 63.   Radhubabu had made  quite an impression among jazz aficionados. This just a year or two before Ravishankar and Ali Akbar explored the southern route. Anyway, John Bucklow had given me a bottle of Scotch whisky to present to Radhubabu. I did not know where to stay and went to Grand Hotel. I stayed there for one day. It was of course very expensive for me but I wanted to deliver the gift so first thing the next day, without checking out, I went to Radhubabu at his house in Kali Bari Lane at Jadavpur, to give him his bottle of whisky. He was delighted and asked ‘where do you stay’ and ‘what are you doing’, and told that I was looking for a sarod. ‘Oh, yes.’ and probably told me the names of some karekars. I knew that he was a sarod player but it did not register as an opportunity because I was so obsessed with Ali Akbar Khan that, strange as it may sound, I did not think asking for his advice. He said ‘Mr. Barlow if you want to spend a week or two in Calcutta finding what you need , I have a spare flat and you are very welcome to stay there.’. It was opposite his house on the ground floor and was a nice simple roomy apartment. So he gave me a place to stay and he treated me fantastically well but never suggested that I should learn with him. Radhubabu was a superb cook and was very kind and courteous. He treated me to wonderful food and taught me to eat  Ilish [Hilsa] without choking on the bones. I had previously met Nikhil Banerjee in Sydney at the house of Nadine Amadeo who was a great enthusiast for Indian Music and belonged to one of Australia’s prominent musical families. So having settled momentarily in Radhubabu’s flat I went to meet Nikhilda who lived not far away in Jodhpur Park, which in those days was very open with just a few apartment buildings and houses standing in the fields.  I told him that I wanted to learn the sarode but didn’t know what to do and that Maihar was certainly  not the best place any longer. He asked me where I was staying. I said that I was staying with Radhika Mohan Maitra and explained how it had happened. He started laughing and said that ‘you are laying on the lap of sarod!’ and  so with Nikhil Banerjee’s hearty recommendation I requested Radhubabu to teach me started learning with him.