ANNAPURNA DEVI ... 2

ANNAPURNA DEVI ... 2

Rigorous riyaaz alone can hone one's musical talent to a level of perfection where music becomes automatic like breathing and flows out spontaneous like the scented summer breeze. Such a degree of perfection is not come by in a year or two but slowly dawns on the striving soul after decades of sadhana. Musically gifted one has to be from birth, being endowed with an ear that catches the subtle nuances of music and its multifarious moods from the sombre to the serene, melancholy to merry, a melodic mind that resonates to every pulsation of the heart and gives expression to it through notes ringing with its spirit.

Such a soul was born on a full moon day in Maihar on 23 April, 1927 to Baba Allauddin Khan and Madina Begum, alias Madanmanjari, the new-born a veritable incarnation of the deity Sharada who presided over the small principality ruled by Maharaja Brijnath Singh who was both patron and pupil to the illustrious disciple of the Rampur Ustad Wazir Khan, our beloved Baba Allauddin. Baba's last and most musically gifted offspring had been gifted unto him by the heavens for grooming and giving unto the world in her the best of the Seniya tradition that he held in his soul saturated with it.

Baba Allauddin was to withhold training of young Roshan Ara after the tragic demise of elder daughter Jahan Ara consequent on her in-laws not having allowed her to pursue her musical training and sadhana. Islamic orthodoxy had stood in the way and Baba was not going to repeat his mistake of initiating a daughter into music again. But fate decreed otherwise.

Maharaja Brijnath Singh had named Roshan Ara, Annapurna, for she had been born on a full moon day and the child blossomed into the fullest moon in the firmament of Indian classical music despite the odds that were so heavily stacked against her through a lifelong of trials and tribulations, personal suffering and loss, emotional trauma and, eventually, the untimely bereavement of her only son Subho.

But things are proceeding rather fast and before we move ahead, let us turn back to those early days when young Allauddin struggled on the streets of Calcutta in his quest for a Guru who could teach him to fulfilment the profundities of raag music. Let us roll back time to the latter half of the eighteenth century then when the British had settled in this metropolis of Calcutta and the city was the hub of both Occidental and Oriental music. Alam, as Allauddin had been nicknamed, was roaming the streets of Calcutta, an eight year old boy who had fled home in East Bengal and arrived in 1870 in this city, being guided by a mysterious musical force that would not let him rest till his soul had been saturated in the ocean of music that beckoned him on.

Note : About the year of Allauddin Khan's birth there are two opinions. One account says that he was born on 8 October, 1862 on Durgashtami Day while another account says that he was born on 8 October in 1881. One would have to search old almanacs in the National Library to get to the truth by finding out whether Durgashtami fell on 8 October in 1862 or in 1881. That could be one way. The other would be to find out from the records of the Minerva Theatre as to when Allauddin Khan had been employed as musician there under the supervision of playwright and legendary actor Girish Chandra Ghosh. Yet another could be to find out the date of his association with dhrupadiya Gopal Krishna Bhattacharya, alias Nulo Gopal, his first Guru and mentor, and then with instrumentalist Habu Dutta who was Narendranath Dutta's (Swami Vivekananda in later life) cousin.

The exact year of Allauddin Khan's birth needs authentication as it involves a seminal significance in the narrative of his boyhood on the streets of Calcutta. Was it the 1870s or was it the 1890s that Allauddin was in this city in search of a Guru who could teach him the rudiments and the refinements of raag music? This needs to be established once and for all. There must be no two opinions on this for it completely alters the scope of the narrative and makes the life-story of such a great musician almost mythical to begin with. This must not be. Facts will have to be uncovered through painstaking research and historical rigour must oversee the storytelling of the maestro's life.

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : Annapurna Devi absorbed in her surbahar rendition.