Pandit Bhimsen Joshi a perfectionist

“The highest honour conferred on my father Pandit Bhimsen Joshi was the honour to Hindustani music. It was a great reward for the ‘Swara Pradhan’ music. My father was a perfectionist.”

This was Raghavendra Joshi eldest son of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi. This reporter had met him in Dharwad on the day the Centre announced Pandit Bhimsen Joshi’s name for conferring the Bharat Ratna. Raghavendra, a resident of Pune was touring Uttara Kannada district with his wife Manjari when he got the news of his father being nominated for the honour. Business Standard caught up with him during his brief halt at his cousin Ramakan Joshi’s residence.

When this reporter contacted him on Monday after the demise of Panditji, Raghavendra recalled how his father had struggled to reach the top and attributed his success to his tremendous will power and determined efforts. “The credit for Bheemanna reaching such great heights of Hindustani music should go to his mother Ramabai and maternal uncle Achyutacharya Katti of Badami. It was they who instilled in him the love for music. Of course, Bhimsen’s grandfather, whose name was also Bhimsenacharya, was a great exponent of Keertana form of music,” he said.

Stating that Bhimsen breathed music, he said, “Bheemanna had a gifted voice coupled with great imaginative capacity. One part of his brain was always in music.”

He recalled how sheer will power helped his father return to music after being in the ICU for 22 days three years ago. “The doctors had given up hope, and Bheemanna often had convulsions. Even then, you could see his fingers counting the ‘talas’. He not only regained his health but was looking forward to singing at the forthcoming Sawai Gandharva Memorial Music festival in Pune,” he said.

“My father had tremendous faith in his Guru Sawai Gandharva and Raghavendra Swamy of Mantralaya. He believed in his own strength, both physical and spiritual, and engrossed himself completely with ‘Swara’.

He would forget everything once he started singing. His physical strength helped him reach out to three ‘Saptaks’ and stay for a while on ‘Karja’ which is a difficult proposition for others.”

Raghavendra remembered how his mother Nandabai and other children supported Bhimsen in his endeavour.

“Bheemanna was a loving person. A very simple man, he always wore a white ‘jubba and pyjama’ even during his tours abroad. He would win the hearts of millions of music lovers not by his appearance but by his sonorous music,” Raghavendra said.

On why Pandit Bhimsen Joshi could not train his own children in Hindustani music, Raghavendra said it was a question haunting him also. “I had great interest in Hindustani vocal music and I wanted to be a singer. But the circumstances were somehow not conducive and I had to give up,” he said.