Vishnu Digambar Paluskar
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Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar (August 18, 1872 – August 21, 1931) was an Indian classical musician.
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[edit] Early life
Vishnu Digambar Paluskar was born in Kurundwad, a small town falling under the Deccan division of Bombay Presidency during British rule, presently in Maharashtra. His father, Digambar Gopal Paluskar, was a singer of Kirtan—a religious song. He went to a local school in Kurundwad for primary education. But tragedy struck Paluskar at an early age. During a Hindu festival called Datta Jayanti, a fire-cracker burst near his face damaging both his eyes. Being a small town, there was no immediate treatment available and Palukar lost his eye-sight. The king of Miraj recognising the talent in the boy put him under the guidance of Balakrishna Bua lchalkaranjikar, a learned musician. Paluskar trained under him for 12 years till in 1896 the relations between the teacher and student became strained.[1]
[edit] Travels and study of music
After that Paluskar began touring the country and studied the musical traditions in each part of Northern India. He went from place to place and visited many royal families in cities like Baroda and Gwalior, well known for their patronage of musicians. But he broke a long standing tradition of Indian music by giving a public concert in Saurashtra and charging a nominal fee. Concerts by musicians were always given in palaces or temples but never in public. He studied Brijbhasha, a dialect of Hindi, spoken at Mathura. He met Pandit Chandan Chaube and learnt Dhrupad music from him. Paluskar reached Lahore in 1901 where he decided to settle down and establish a music school.
[edit] Gandharva Mahavidyalaya
On May 5, 1901 Paluskar founded the Gandharva Mahavidyala, a school to impart formal training in Indian classical music.[1] It was a school open to all and one of the first music schools in India to run on public support and donations rather than the patronage of the royalty. The school was a challenge to the traditional teacher-student method of training music where a student lived under the roof of the teacher. Many students from his early batches became respected musicians and teachers in North India. This brought a change in the way people looked at classical musicians. They started treating musicians with respect which was not associated with the profession earlier.
In September 1908 Paluskar went to Bombay (now Mumbai) to establish another branch of the school. As the work-load increased, Paluskar shifted the school from Lahore to Bombay. To accommodate all the students, he took loans and built a new building for the school and built hostels for the students. He worked very hard and gave several concerts in public places but could not gather sufficient funds to pay his debt. Finally, when he was on a concert tour in 1924, his creditors attached his properties and auctioned off the school. This was a big blow to Paluskar.[2]
[edit] Association with the Independence struggle
Paluskar came in contact with leaders of the Indian independence movement like Lala Lajpat Rai, Lokmanya Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi. When Lala Lajpat Rai was arrested in 1907 he sang a composition of the famous song Pagree Sambhal Jatta. He used to attend the conventions of the Indian National Congress and sing his own composition of Vande Mataram, the national song of India, in Raga Kafi.[3] Paluskar was a master of taking old religious songs and setting them into classical tunes. Paluskar composed the tune of the devotional song Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram. This was Mahatma Gandhi's favourite Bhajan and was sung daily by the satyagrahis during the famous Dandi March. [4] He also composed a variation of the patriotic song Saare Jahan Se Achcha. Such was his fame that when King George V came to India, Paluskar was asked to perform at the Royal Garden of Lahore.[5]
[edit] Death and legacy
Paluskar passed away on August 21, 1931. On 21 July 1973, the Posts and Telegraph Department, Government of India paid homage to Pandit Paluskar by releasing a commemorative stamp.[6] Today Paluskar is seen as the musician who brought respect to the profession of classical musicians and took Hindustani classical music out from the traditional Gharana system to the masses of India. He has written a book on music called Sangeet Bal Prakash in three volumes, and also written 18 volumes on ragas. Many of his disciples like Omkarnath Thakur, Vinayak Rao Patwardhan and Narayan Rao Vyas were renowned classical singers. His son D. V. Paluskar was also trained in classical music and carried on the mission of his father. In 2000, the India Today magazine named Pandit Paluskar to be one of the 100 people who shaped India.[7]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
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[edit] Further reading
- Deva, B. Chaitanya (1981). An Introduction to Indian Music. Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.
- Athavale, V.R. (1967). Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar. National Book Trust.
