Seven strings, seven decades
ANJANA RAJAN
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Pandit Debu Chaudhuri marked his 70th birthday with a musical evening.
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NO FRETTING OVER FRETS: Pandit Debu Chaudhuri in New Delhi on his 70th birthday. PHOTO: RAJEEV BHATT
It was a birthday like any other, and a birthday with a difference. After all, aren't artistes like everyone else, and then different too? So when sitar exponent Pandit Debu Chaudhuri celebrated his 70th birthday recently, there were the trappings of celebrity as well as examples of simple delights. Not every birthday boy can expect a press conference in his honour, though the birthday cake and fruit drink might not be beyond reach. The traditional touch was provided by the festival of music a few days later, featuring a vocal recital by Shubha Mudgal and a concert by the birthday boy himself, accompanied by tabla legend Pandit Kishan Maharaj.
"This 70-year journey is one of failure and success. I have no malice against anyone, but I have missed out a lot of things in life," he says, attributing many of the difficulties he encountered in building his career to not hailing from a musical family. He adds, however, "There is no point in brooding. But it's a lesson for the next generation, the way I have come has been a way of thorns, not roses."
Point proven
Says the maestro, a disciple of the late Ustad Mushtaq Ali Khan, after whom he has named his institution, UMAK Centre for Culture, "I have proved that you don't have to be from a musician's family to become a musician. When I told my father, a businessman, that I wanted to take up music, he slapped me!"
Perhaps that was just the metaphorical push he needed to firm up his determination. Playing on All India Radio since the age of 13, he had to comply with his father's order that all musical pursuits must be given up until he passed his Matriculation. Later he started training under Ustad Mushtaq Ali Khan.
Like many an aspiring artiste, the young Debu got a shock when his guru told him to forget everything he had learnt so far. "He played the 17-fret sitar (most play sitars with 19 or more frets), a tradition that dated back to Tansen. I thought I was a sitar player, but he made me start from Sa Re Ga Ma"
The first raga his guru taught him was Desh, recalls Chaudhuri. This is because Desh makes use of two Nishads, and the smaller number of frets means the player has to be much more accurate in finding the right note.
Chaudhuri stresses that he and his disciples including son Prateek are the only ones now playing the 17-fret sitar. "If you ask me why, I'll say it's because my guru asked me to. My guru is my God," he declares.
Chaudhuri, a Padma Bhushan recipient who retired from the Music Faculty of the University of Delhi, seems to alternate between elation at all life has given him and a certain simmering discontent. He is in the midst of penning his autobiography, intriguingly titled "Why Me?", which seems to epitomise his approach to both the bouquets and brickbats life has thrown at him.
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