The Goan: Did you always want to play the bansuri?
Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia: My love for the bansuri beganat a very early age, right from my childhood. And surprisingly, this passionfor music didn’t come from my parents. In fact my father wanted me to become awrestler like him as also complete my education and work as a clerk, preferablyin a government organisation. I even tried to please him by joining an akhadabut my heart wasn’t in it. I would get poor marks in school and would play thebansuri to make my teachers happy. Unable to become either a wrestler or aclerk, I finally turned full time to music and started learning vocal musicfrom my neighbor Pandit Rajaram at the age of 15. Later, I switched to playingthe flute under the tutelage of Pandit Bholanath Prasanna of Varanasi for eightyears.
TG: How did you become a professional bansuri player?
HC: My career in music started from the time I joined theAll India Radio, Cuttack, Orissa in 1957 where I worked as a composer andperformer. Much later, while working for All India Radio, I received guidancefrom the reclusive Annapurna Devi, daughter of Baba Allaudin Khan.
TG: What led to composing for films?
HC: I had always shared a very good relationship with PanditShivkumar Sharma and we formed a partnership under the name Shiv-Hari to composefor films like ‘Chandni’, ‘Darr’, ‘Lamhe’, ‘Silsila’, ‘Faasle’, ‘Vijay’, and soon. I got to learn a lot from the legendary music director Madan Mohan. Most ofthese film projects were also because of our excellent relationship with YashChopra. In those days it used to take months to compose a single song and thelyricist, director and even the cameraman would sit together and discuss thevarious aspects of a song. Words would play a very important role in any songand a filmmaker like Bimal Roy used to work on lyrics for months on end. Now ofcourse it’s all done at a rapid-fire pace with technology and money calling theshots.
TG: How has your international collaboration fared?
HC: Over the years I have collaborated with several westernmusicians, including John McLaughlin and Jan Garbarek. I have done showsthroughout the world and have received words of praise from such renownedstalwarts as Yehudi Menuhin and Jean-Pierre Rampal. All this has helped me gaina wider perspective of music and, as is more than evident today, it is musicthat can help bridge bonds of friendship and peace.
TG: How do you intend to create more flautists in the world?
HC: Teaching the bansuri has been my life-long mission. Tothat end, I serve as the artistic director of the World Music Department at theRotterdam Music Conservatory in the Netherlands. I am also the founder of theVrindavan Gurukul in Mumbai which was set up in 2006 and the Vrindavan Gurukulin Bhubhaneshwar that was started in 2010. Both of these institutes are schoolsdedicated to training students in Hindustani bansuri in the guru-shishyatradition. As a guru I can lay claim to have produced many noted disciples,including Rupak Kulkarni, Rakesh Chaurasia, Vivek Sonar, Sameer Rao, JayGandhi, Santosh Sant and Himanshu Nanda, among others.
TG: What do you have to say about the bansuri?
HC: It’s one of the oldest musical instruments and I wouldsay that none other than God has made it. And it’s such a simple instrumentwhich doesn’t even require any maintenance.
