I never knew Bhimsen Joshi. I never met him and I never sat for any of his concerts. But he was a part of my life. Every morning, at breakfast he’d sing for us. There were a few cassettes my mother loved that travelled with us on road trips and later were converted to CD an then mp3s.
When he died, my mother sent me an SMS. We were at Jaipur. Chimananda Adichie was on stage talking about she grew up in the house that had once belong to Chinua Achebe.
I felt nothing. Bhimsen Joshi was almost 90 and very sick. None of us expected him to live much longer. I thought of Nidheesh Tyagi. Even before Pune Mirror had launched, Nidheesh knew what kind of coverage the paper would give. “The entire edition should be black and white,” he said, drawing the layout of the first few pages on a rough sheet of paper.
He made us keep archival photos ready and contact numbers close. When the time came, we’d know whom to call and what to do. But Nidheesh was no longer the editor of Pune Mirror. He’s in Chandigarh where he wrote a piece for the Tribune.
For the last 3 days, each evening I was at the Pt. Bhimsen Joshi Smriti Concert, Arghya.It was at New English School Ramanbaug, the same place at which the Sawai Gandharva Sangeet Mahotsav is held.
“Please don’t ask for encores,” said Anand Deshmukh at the start. Just enjoy the music and that would be a tribute to Pandit Bhimsen Joshi.
Anand Deshmukh is the compere for Sawai Gandharva and it would have felt incomplete without him. Almost everything was the same as a Sawai Gandharva concert. The format was the same, there was similar seating arrangment, the same organisers, the same people who provided the sound system and the same PR company doing media rounds. And like Tushar Joshi, the PR head, most of them turned up and did what they could voluntarily.
But it felt different.
Passes were given away free and the best seats on the floor, right in front of the stage were available to anyone who came early. And in the audience fewer people jostled, fewer people stood at the back near the food stalls and fewer people talked. There were claps and discerning sighs, but unlike at the Sawai, there was a patient silence while the stage was being adjusted and even between pieces. Nitin Gadkari showed up and only the press seemed excited. It was the same with Supriya Sule.
Each day, the first artiste was a disciple who’d sing a rendition of a raag or bhajan or abhanga made famous by Bhimsen Joshi.
Everyone had a story about Bhimsenji. How he called Parveen Sultana to Pune when she was just 14, and later, how he made her sing a Marathi song. How he loved cars and would pick up Rashid Khan in his Mercedes. My parents had stories about him and so did the rest of my family and almost everyone I knew who’d attended a concert.
And at the end of the last day, after everyone had sang and there was 15 minutes left before the loudspeaker deadline, Anand Deshmukh asked us to stay back. “Every Sawai Gandharva Sangeet Mahotsav is ended with Bhairavi. We’d like to end this concert series with a Bhairavi sung by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi.”
People adjusted their seats to get a better view of the screen. No one talked.
And then Bhimsen Joshi sang. He was younger than I’d ever seen him in black and white. He sat with his legs folded and sang with his whole body. And when it was over people clapped, got up, adjusted their clothes and left.
I remembered my mother once telling us to bring binoculars to get a closer look at his face. I was 7 and it was a concert at which he was to sing and either we left early or he didn’t. The binoculars were never used. That was the closest I had ever gotten to seeing him sing live. Until yesterday.
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