Sarod exponent Joydeep Ghosh tells Meena Banerjee his musical education allowed him to take uncommon ragas in his stride.

One discovered an intriguing fact from versatile musician Joydeep Ghosh, the concluding artiste of the annual soiree organised recently by Kolkata’s Ballygunge Maitreyee Music Circle, dedicated to the late Sangeetacharya Radhika Mohan Moitra (Radhubabu). On this occasion his sarod etched a rare raga, Kedari-Marwa, with admirable clarity. In this both Kedar and Marwa remained intertwined; like in a braid; without giving up their identity. Such an interpretation, replete with unexpected bends, does not allow complacency, either to the player or to his listeners. This was definitely a show by a maestro for initiated listeners only. The latter is a dwindling community even in Kolkata nowadays; but going by Ghosh’s usual selection of ragas, one was inspired to ask:

What encourages you to choose rare ragas for concerts?

I was only five when I started learning at the feet of great masters Anil Roychoudhury and Radhubabu; and later from Buddhadev Dasgupta. They all belong to the famous Senia Shahajahanpur sarod gharana and they are revered for their enviable melodic treasures. I also learnt tabla and vocal music from venerable gurus. Subsequently, I came under the wings of the erudite and versatile master Bimalendu Mukherjee, a doyen of the famous Imdadkhani gharana of sitar and surbahar. Under their priceless guidance I assimilated vocalism, instrumentalism and the style of rhythmic play along with raga elaboration.

The simple fact is that my gurus did not tell me what were common and what ‘rare’ ragas were. They all came naturally as sister ragas, with their key phrases loud and clear, during the learning process of one major raga; even the jod-ragas (blend of more than one) were taught to me without much ado; just as they did not categorise any instrument and made me learn to play sarod, surshringar and mohanveena.

Isn’t the mohanveena a newly invented instrument?

Unfortunately, very few remember the history of the original mohanveena, conceived and invented by Radhubabu in early 1948! Once, around 1944, he played the surshringar in a jugalbandi (duet) with the famous beenkar (Rudra veena player) Ustad Sadiq Ali Khan in Lucknow. The concert inspired him to design a unique instrument in which the playable materials of both the sitar and the sarod could be appropriately exploited and the tonal quality of the Rudra veena could be equally maintained. Since he was proficient in both, having had his training from Ustad Mohammad Ameer Khan of the Shahajahanpur gharana and Ustad Inayat Khan of the Etawah gharana in the sarod and the sitar respectively, Radhubabu’s experiment succeeded.

The instrument’s majestic tonality impressed Thakur Jaidev Singh, the renowned musicologist who was then Chief Producer, All India Radio, Delhi. In 1950, Thakur Saheb named the instrument ‘mohanveena’ and also arranged an archival recording for AIR, followed by an extensive interview of Radhubabu, its inventor. Radhubabu was invited in several music festivals all over India to play the mohanveena. Some of his rare recordings for AIR archives are available in compact discs as precious documents.

So, despite the emergence of another, Hawaiian guitar-based instrument of the same name almost fifty years later, the original mohanveena exists along with its own unique excellence till date, through some of the devoted torchbearers of Radhubabu’s legacy. I am also a humble exponent of the mohanveena.