The story of how one family from Maharashtra built a thriving Hindustani music scene in Kanpur

The crowds thronging the PPN College grounds in Kanpur to listen to Mahatma Gandhi at the 1924 Congress party conference had started turning unruly. To calm them, the organisers brought on the music earlier than planned. The renowned musician-reformist of the Gwalior gharana, Vishnu Digambar Paluskar, took the stage with a group of disciples.

So riveting and sweet was the music – bhajans and nationalist songs set to ragas – that the crowds barely noticed Gandhi stepping onto the stage. The principal of the college was impressed. Could Paluskar send one of his students to teach music at the college? There was, the principal complained, no environment for classical music in the industrial city.

The anecdote comes from Uttaradhikar (Inheritance), a collection of essays put together by Veena Sahasrabuddhe, one of the best-loved vocalists of our times. In the book, using her own recollections, and her father’s and brother’s writings, she traces the story of her family’s musical journey.

That journey took a crucial turn at the Congress party conference in 1924. For, among the youngsters in the troupe at the PPN College grounds was her father, Shankar Shripad Bodas, then a 24-year-old student of Paluskar from Sangli, Maharashtra. It was he who was sent by his guru...

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