ANANPURNA DEVI ... 6

ANANPURNA DEVI ... 6

Usually daughters resemble their fathers in looks and attributes and sons their mothers. It ought to be 'like father, like daughter' and 'like mother, like son'. Of course, this is the major rule. The minor exception the other way round still holds where it comes out 'like father, like son'. But that is the minor occurrence. Accordingly, Annapurna Devi resembled her father Baba Allauddin Khan in personality traits and in musical excellence. In rejecting her, someone had rejected in effect the brightest progeny of his Guru and the greatest musician of the 20th century after Baba Allauddin Khan himself. It is, therefore, highly improper to remember her as her first husband's estranged wife, especially when such reference is made not merely to state a fact but to glorify her, as if, in connection with her virtuoso ex-husband. The bare fact is that she was arguably a far greater musician than her estranged first husband and that she needed no such props to stand on her own feet in the hierarchy of Indian music. Annapurna Devi was the greatest product from Maihar and will be remembered in the ages to come as one of the finest exponents of the surbahar ever and a musician who was far above her peers both in musical excellence and in character attributes. She was, indeed, a true Guru in the mould of her great father.

Written by Sugata Bose