Sangeet Martand Pandit Jasraj: A journey across three octaves

Along with Vidushi Kishori Amonkar, from the early 1970s, Jasraj spearheaded what came to be known as the "romanticist movement" in Hindustani music

By his own admission, the earliest memory of Pandit Jasraj was being enraptured by the rendition of “Deewana banana hai toh deewana bana de…”, a ghazal written by Sardar Hasan Khan ‘Behzad Lakhnavi’ and immortalised by Begum Akhtar.

Jasraj, who died on August 17 at the age of 90, belonged to the Mewati gharana, whose fountainhead was Ustad Ghagge Nazir Khan from Jodhpur in the Mewat region of Rajasthan. While his father, Pandit Motiram, had initiated him into music, Jasraj imbibed foundational ta’lim from his elder brothers Pratap Narayan and Maniram, whom he used to also accompany in concerts at