ABOUT MYSELF
My
childhood was spent in
Our
neighbors were Bengalis who were extremely fond of Music.Every evening the
Sarkars would
meet and sing together.Across the window when they saw me,they would ask
me to come over and
join them/
They
would often take me to Bengali M ovies. I still remember seeing Vidyapati
In
Bengali. I was highly impressed by
the music of the film/
This
is how I was introduced to world of Music
Slowly I took to singing.
When
my father saw this he went and bought a small
harmonium for me. The price he paid was only 1O rupees. He
was very fond of Music and could play Sitar.
One
of our Bengali neighbours called
Deemi ( B.C.Dutt ) was also a
badminton player . He trained me well and I got the All
In
\ 1943 we shifted to
I
started searching for a Bengali teacher and was fortunate enough to
find J.K.Banerjee who was fondly
called Kakajee by us all. I have no words to describe his since ri ty .
At
every note he would make us sing
again and again until our note was
nearly in tune.He tried very hard to make me sing in tune but alas ! he failed
for no fault of his.
At
this juncture I was suddenly
attracted to Classical Music and started
learning from Mahadev Mishra for some time,
Afterwards
I the good luck to learn Classical
Music from Pt. Krishnarao Chonkar who had worked with the legendary Bal
Ghandharava for 3O years on the stage.When I told him that I wanted to learn
Rhythms from him along
with singing he
was highly amused but agreed to give it a try.
Surely he must have observed my colourful
singing and was probably relieved
at my request.
He
was shocked to observe that I could
sing perfectly in
Taals like 9 beats,11 beats,13 beats and 15 beats
but would fumble in simple
Taals like 6 , 8 and 16 beats.
So
one day when I requested him to record all the 2O basic Taals against 2O Raagas
( 2 from each of 1O Thhats
)he put his foot down on the project saying that no one would be crazy to
buy such a cassette
.But
eventually when I convinced him that
this cassette would work like a Dictionary of Indian
Music he agreed . For this project he
roped in Shridhar Padhye on Tabla ,
and Baban Manjrekar on H armonium .
Thus
our first cassette Raag Sargam aur
Eventually
we produced 15 other cassettes ,
with 2O basic Rhythms
or at least 12 of them on
each of them
On
Tabla we recorded 52 rhythms .
On
.Pakhawaj.we recorded 37 Rhythms.
Our
main programmes in this set of 16 are Raag Sargam aur
Shruti
Sadolikar , Shridhar Padhye ,Arjun Shejwal
and of course Pandit
Krishnarao Chonkar have been the main pillars.
I
am selling these as Chandiramani’s Music of
Simultaneously
I started to learn singing from the
famous music director Bulo.C.Rani who had given Music for 85 pictures
and is still remembered for his famous qawali ( Humein to loot
liya husun walon ne) and
the music of Jogin..
But
somehow I was more interested in composing
than singing.
‘
So
one day, I said to him ,I have
composed one Bhajan. Would you like to listen.’
’
Being
a very friendly and a noble soul he said, ‘
okay.’
I
stil remember singing Guru Nanak’s Thakur
tum sarnai,in
He
was very impressed and said, ’With your classical Music background
I suggest you switch over to composing
.’
I
said, Are you tired of teaching me
to sing that you want to push me in
composing ?.’
He
said, ‘ I think you have
a fascination for Rhythms
and compostion. Combine the two and I will help and guide you. Besides as grows
old,one’s singing power decreases but not the power of composition.’
Until
today , I enjoy composing Bhajan s
and Ghazals and Sindhi music in
different Taals with a classical background. And in at least in12 Rhythms
I
have made a cassette with 19 Taals
in Sindhi music. Hindi Bhajans in 12 Taals and Ghazals in 12 Taals also.
I
am grateful to Kamla Jhang iani who
encouraged me and sung my first composition
in Jhap
.Bulaji
suggested that she should sing the
same composition in 6 beatsinstead but
she declined to do so and said, ‘I prefer to sing in the original Jhap Taal,;’
That
gave me a very good boost.
Afterwards
there was no turning back. I am fortunate that singers like Nirmala
Aroon , Kavita Krishnamurti, Shruti Sadolikar, Usha Amonkar,Ghanshyam
Vaswani and Madhu Shehri have sung
my compositions
The
most difficult composition has been sung in two Rhythms interlinked in
the same song by Ghanshyam Vaswani
with Arjun Shejwal on Pakhawaj.
In
between I went to
I
was indeed impressed to see their
progress on all fronts.
So
when I came back, I started
learning German from Prof Dr S.B.Hudlikar (
Here
also I could not concentrate on learning the Language and its Grammer but was
very fond of translating to
German with the help of dictionaries.
When
I told the Prof, that I wanted to do some translation along with learning the
grammer and the language , he was
taken a back but being another kind
soul, agreed to help me with my whim/
.
One
day while correcting my translation ,he said, ‘,It is a pity that Germans are
translating our Shastras into
German but we are doing nothing about it.’
Panchatantra
was first published in 1481 in
So
I said, Why do we not attempt such a venture ? Let us try with our ancient
classic Panchatantra itself .’
He
was very skeptic about it but agreed to try
Every
morning he would translate from Sanskrit Text, word for word.into English.I
would go home, rearrange the sentences and bring them on the next day for final
correction.
We
first translated Panchatantra into
English version. It took us 7 years It has been touched up by Sylvia Gidley
Next
we translated Panchatantra into
German. Dr. A Karl (
,M/S
Eugen Diederichs published it and sold all the 5OOO copies,.
Thus
we were the first Indians to have translated
Panchatantra into German
In
between I went to
As
I met musicians. Writers, and
dancers, I was attracted to their literature and folklore
and was amazed to find astounding similarities between
our backgrounds Afterall ,
for 15OO years Indonesia was Hindu and Buddhist . Stories called
Kishah Tantri and Tantri
Tales. Have originated from
Panchatantra.
I
did some research and came to the conclusion that probably
Panchatantra was translated into ancient Kawi language of Indonesia in
the 11th century, during the reign
of King Airlanga , at the
same time when Ramayana and
Mahabharat were translated.There are historical records
that he got the scholars from India to translateSanskrit Shastras into
Kawi.
Incidently
,There are 4OO common words between Sanskrit and Indonesian.
So
when I came back I started learning Indonesian
from the books..
Eventually
with the help of one Jyoti Daryanani an Indian from
I
have also translated Tales of
Hitopadesha into English and
German and Indonesian/
A
DVD od Tales of Hitopadesha is being produced by me.When the children read it
and listen to it ,surely their
Standard of English will go up.
This
remindsme.My father would always say,’Do something that the others have not
done before.,’
I am glad I have not failed him .
Whatever
I have achieved in life on the music and literature front has been due
to my extremely efficient and kind Gurus
who always listened to my whims and
guided me with love and affection/ My gratitude
to them knows no bounds/