| Told by | Sanjay Guha |
| Obtained by | Prof. Sanjoy Bandopadhyay |
| Date | 27 th Dec 2016 |
| Place | 3/1/1D Padmapukur Road, Kolkata 700092 |
| About the speaker | The well-known sitar player Sanjoy Guha is now serving as a faculty member at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, London. He learnt music from a number of highly reputed musicians including Pt. Radhika Mohan Moitra, Pt. Deepak Chaudhury and Vidwan M. Balamurali Krishna. |
| Tags | Montu Banerjee, Harmonium, Vilayat Khan, Sitar, Taan, Chaupalli, Choupalli Anga, Jnan Prakash Ghosh, Mahajati Sadan, Amir Hussain Khan, Chhanda, Sanjay Mukherjee, Anindo Chatterjee. |
| Language | Bengali |
Sanjay Guha speaks :
Metadata generated by Suranjita Paul
Verbatim:
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Verbatim by: Rajeswary Ganguly Banerjee
Translation:
You mentioned Mantu babu, Mantu Banerjee.
- Mantu Banerjee, the renowned harmonium player. Mantu babu lived right next door to us. I was very close to him; he used to call me Nati (grandson in Bengali). He used to say, “Come, let’s go for an early morning walk.” When he walked home in the evening and found me playing or doing something else, he would ask me whether or not I had practiced my instrument that day. Then he would say, “No, no, no, you should play as well .
” Immediately, he would reminisce about Ustad Bilayet Khan, who, while living at his house, would play carrom till late in the evening, say till 9:30 to 10 pm. And then he would start his practise, which would often go on the entire night. He would say that games and sports were very important too. So that was an experience I had of him. Another thing I noticed was that, Mantu babu always performed with a lot of force and energy. One day he told me “Come, play your sitar for me. Im getting old now, I don’t know if I would be able to hear you play later in life.” He asked my uncle to bring my sitar. Back then, I could only play memorised music. So, when he asked me to play a certain Taan again, though I couldn’t recall it clearly. Then, he said to my uncle, “This is of Chaupalli in origin. It is similar to a Chaupalli composed by Amir Hussain Khan.” He said the bole out aloud, as if recalling it from his memory: ta kita dhe ke ta, ta kita dhe ke ta. Later my uncle said, “My brother learned it from Gyan babu, the composition, which is why the taan was made into that rhythm.”
- “Wow”
- I had also been there to listen to him playing. At Mahajati Sadan, when Sanjay Da was also there, along with Anindya Da was also there. And he would play with such ease… It was nothing for him to play in front of those people. Those were a different kind of experience altogether.
- Very Good.
Translated by: Ankana Das
Picture Courtesy: Sri Kamalakksha Mukhopadhay, Eminent Harmonium Artist and Google
Edited & Designed: Ms. Rajeswary Ganguly Banerjee
Data processed at SAP-DRS Lab, Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University.