Doyen of Hindustani classical music dies at 90
MUMBAI:“A huge pillar of Hindustani classical music has fallen,” poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar said on Monday. “I have been with Pandit Jasraj in India and abroad and I have seen how people responded to him — the kind of reverence and admiration they had for him reflected his genius and his humility.”
Speaking on Monday, the day of Jasraj’s passing — the legendary vocalist died aged 90, from cardiac arrest, in New Jersey — Akhtar recalled a 2003 event at which they performed together in New Delhi.
“The event was called Tiranga and was conceptualised by his daughter Durga Jasraj. All the elements of the Indian national flag had to be described through poems recited by me, without directly mentioning nationalism or patriotism. He performed, singing about the colour orange. And only by his voice, his taan and his singing he created the whole atmosphere that the poem sought to convey,” Akhtar recalled.
He was a teacher till the very end, his daughter Durga said on Monday. “What he did for Indian classical vocal music was unprecedented. He had schools for classical music all over the world — in North America, in Canada in Mumbai, Kerala and Pune. Even at 90, he was teaching via [the video chat app] Zoom. He had no mental blocks about technology or anything else. He even did three virtual concerts recently.”
Jasraj’s love of music really did transcend. The proponent of the Mewati Gharana made his debut as a tabla artist in 1937. His first concert as a vocalist was in the darbar of King Tribhuvan Bik Bikram Shah of Nepal in 1952; he was 22. It was here that the genius of his voice was first recognised, and he was awarded 5,000 mohurs. As he put it in a 2019 interview with HT, “The sum was more than I could count.”
In 1995, percussionist Aneesh Pradhan remembers meeting Jasraj at the Pandit Motiram Pandit Maniram event that the latter organised annually in Hyderabad. .
“I was sitting in the green room with my tabla and Pandit Jasraj reached out and said, ‘Let me give it a go’,” Pradhan said, “and after so many years, he was perfectly in command of the instrument. It was quite astounding.”
In those few minutes, Pradhan said, he witnessed the wonder of a music-lover rediscovering an instrument. “There was no element of his being a star. It was just a musician doing what he loved, and it was heart-warming.”
Durga said love of music spilled over and enchanted others around the world. “He was born in a very small village in Haryana and he captivated an entire world and also became a planet last year.” In September 2019, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) named a minor planet the Panditjasraj 300128, the number reflecting the date of his birth in reverse. It whirls between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, in a band of others also named after classical musicians — there’s a Pavarotti, a Beethoven, a Mozart.
Jasraj received honour after honour here at home too, including the Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan. The tribute that meant most to him, he said, was when the people of his village of Pilli Mandori built a park in his name.
Jaraj was an innovator. In the 1970s he introduced a unique form of the jugalbandi, called the Jasrangi, where a male and female vocalist sang different ragas simultaneously, in their natural pitch, and eventually merged into one uniform sound. It evolved from the idea of equality.
He revived old forms of music such as the haveli sangeet, once performed only in temples. He sang for films and listened to all forms of music, including Bollywood tunes.
“What a blessing to sing till the very end,” Durga said of her father on Monday. “If you listen to one of those online concerts today you’ll ask yourself, was he ever 90?”