Master Madan

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Master Madan was a talented Ghazal singer of India of pre-independence era. He is immensely popular despite the fact that he died at a very early age of only 14.

From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian

Master Madan: a short biography of a short life

I have been meaning to write about Master Madan for some time. A recent query gives me an excuse to do so now. Of the eight songs he recorded in his short life, only two Gazals are available now. These are the famous,"yuu.N naa rah rah ke hame.m ta.Dapaaiiye" and, "hairat se tak rahaa hai". These were written by saaGar nizaami and set to music by amaranaath, elder brother of the duo husnlal-bhagatram. Hiiraalaal was on tabalaa and on violin was MM's elder brother Master Mohan. During 1966-69, these were played again and again in the common room of Bhatanagar Hall of Panjab University, where I was a student at that time. Here is a summary of his life, extracted from an article in issue 52 of Listeners' Bulletin, a magazine published by that sardar-e-azam, Har Mandir Singh. The article is based on his interview with Master Madan's elder sister, Mrs. Mallika Devi, during 1983.

MM was born on December 28, 1927, in khaanakhaanaa, a village in District jalandhar of the Panjab. He sang in public for the first time when he was 3.5 years old, in a rally arranged by dharamapur sanatorium. He sang, "vandan he shaaradaa naman karuu.N" in raag mishrit kaafii. The audience was in heaven and on their insistence, he sang two more raags. He was given many gold medals right there and then. After that he and his elder brother toured all over India and collected many prizes from the rulers of many princely states. They sang in the famous haravallabh music festival of jalandhar and later in shimalaa. Apparently, in the shimalaa sammelan, diinaanath mangeshakar had also come but thousands were eager to listen to MM.

MM was a very religious child and spoke little. During the night, he would just sit in padmaasan position and jap maalaa. He was educated at sanaatan dharam school in shimalaa, raamajas school in Delhi and Hindu College in Delhi. His musical education was provided by his mother, Mrs. puuran devii, his father amar singh, MD amaranaath, and, later by gusaaii.n bhagavat kishor, aasaf alii, zahiir haidar, saradaar husain, ramazaan Kaan, and taalib husain, all well-known music teachers of the day.

At the age of eight, he was a famous radio singer, singing mainly on Delhi radio station on Alipur road. MM was a disciple of sant kaleraan vaale, a famous guru in Panjab. Apparantely, the sant foretold of MM's untimely death at a young age. In one of the gatherings of the sant, MM sang raag jaunapurii with such great concentration that people claimed to see the raaginii herself dressed in beautiful garb. When he sang bhairavii though, jaunpurii disappeared. This incident was duly reported by the press.

His final public program took place in Calcutta (have they changed it's name yet?) at age 14. He sang, "vinatii suno morii avadhapur ke basaiyaa" for 1.5 hours with such beauty that the public refused to go home and accompanied him to the guest house. One patron respectfully offered Rs. 500, a princely sum in those days, on his feet. Also 9 gold medals were announced by various patrons to be given to him. In those days, gold medals were really made of gold. Much later, during 1964-1968 when I received my "gold" medals from Panjab University for standing first in a multitude of exams, I was disappointed to find out that the "gold" medals were really not even made of silver, but had an atomic layer of Ag on the outside!

He returned to Delhi, where his brother-in-law indar singh took him to the radio station on his bike, where MM sat in the front Tokarii. He started to get high fever, which refused to go away. MM kept going to the Delhi radio station for about 3-4 months. Many remedies were tried but nothing helped. In the summer of '42, he went to shimalaa, where his forehead, and joints started to shine unusually. He died on June 5, 1942 suffering a great deal of pain. It is suspected that he died of mercury poisoning. He used to go to Delhi radio station canteen to drink milk. It is believed that a jealous singer gave him Hg(mercury) in his milk.

On his death, Shimla closed down and a huge gathering accompanied him on his last journey.

A filmvaalaa wanted to cast him as sant kabiir in a movie. His parents refused to give permission, a decision they regretted later.

sangam kalaa group holds an annual All India program in MM's memory in which thousands of talented children participate. Apparently, a group in Canada also holds functions in his memory.

All of his eight songs are available here:

http://films.hindi-movies-songs.com/index-batch3.html

The first two are the easily found and famous Ghazala, but the remining six are very rare.