Sarod master of ‘mental riyaaz’ Pt Buddhadev Das Gupta passes away

DHAKA: Sarod maestro Pt Buddhadev Das Gupta, an unmatched guru, an exponent of the Shahjahanpur gharana and a celebrated performer with a deep cerebral approach to music, succumbed to a cardiac arrest at his south Kolkata residence on Monday. He was 84 and is survived by his wife and two sons.
At the age of nine, when his father was transferred to Rajshahi, Das Gupta me Pt Radhika Mohan Maitra and became his disciple.Subsequently, he perfected a style of playing that displayed a rare accuracy of notes, rabab-based bol patterns and fluent ekhara taans.
What set him apart from other artistes of his generation was that he pursued a full-time career in music only after retiring from his job in a power distribution firm. A meritorious student, Dasgupta had a mechanical engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology. In 2010, the institute had conferred an honorary DLitt to him. With a demanding professional career, Das Gupta didn’t have the luxury to do as much of riyaaz as he would have wanted to. Instead, he perfected a style of ‘mental riyaaz’ and transported the audience to unprecedented heights of musical ecstasy.
Sarod player Pt Tejendra Narayan Majumdar described his music as a combination of “rare authenticity and wisdom with aesthetics”. His disciple, sitar player Pt Nayan Ghosh, said: “Buddha-da was my guru. He had a treasure trove of rare traditional compositions. He taught me some ragas — ‘Kukubh Bilawal’ and ‘Chhaya Behag’ – that are hardly played on instruments. He was the last mountain that crumbled down.”
If Satyajit Ray had his way, he would have got Das Gupta to play in ‘Pather Panchali’. In one of his interviews to TOI, Das Gupta had said: “One day as I was returning from office, I noticed a taxi waiting outside my home and a Bengali gentleman clad in dhuti panjabi sitting in it. My friend, photographer Subrata Mitra, was also there and he asked if I would play my instrument for a film that Satyajit-babu was working on. In those days, we could do nothing without the permission of our gurus. I said no because my guru had expressed his displeasure. That gentleman in the taxi was Satyajit Ray. I really regret it that this happened because of my gurubhakti! I consider it as part of my gurudakshina.”
Though Das Gupta never went on to work in movies, he didn’t shy away from experimentation. His raga based symphonic compositions are often talked about. During the times when Tagore’s copyright wasn’t lifted, he had experimented with Rabindrasangeet. Inspired by Ustad Vilayat Khan’s experiment with ‘Bhenge mor ghorer chabi’, Das Gupta improvised with ‘Sedin dujone’ that was set to Rag Pilu. In 1978, he sent this tune as the concluding piece for the national programme for All India Radio. Veteran singer Suchitra Mitra was so inspired by this composition that she brought up the idea of doing a show with him. In 1985, a unique show was organised with Das Gupta on the sarod, V Balsara on the piano and Mitra on vocals.
Known to speak his mind, Das Gupta had refused the Padma Shri in 2011. His reason: Undeserving people who were half his age were awarded this award before him. “If I accept this now, I would become a comic figure to the whole music community,” he had then said. In 2012, he was conferred with the Padma Bhushan.