Date:05/11/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/05/stories/2008110560750800.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Yeddyurappa congratulates Joshi

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: Tuesday evening’s Rashtrapati Bhavan communiqué announcing the conferring of Bharat Ratna on legendary classical vocalist Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi brought joy to lakhs of Kannadigas.

Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa and a host of leaders, intellectuals and scholars congratulated Pandit Joshi on being conferred with the distinguished honour.

Eighty six year-old Pandit Joshi was born in Gadag on February 4, 1922. A descendant of the Kirana Gharana, he is famous for the khayal form of singing and for the bhajans. He was awarded the Karnataka Ratna, the highest award of the State of Karnataka, in 2005.

Pandit Joshi’s guru Sawai Gandharva was the chief disciple of Abdul Karim Khan, who along with his cousin Abdul Waheed Khan was the founder of the Kirana Gharana.

At the age of 11, Pandit Joshi left home on his own to learn singing and spent three years in north India finding a suitable guru. His father tracked him and brought Joshi home.

In 1936, Rambhau Kundgolkar, known as Sawai Gandharva, agreed to teach him even as Pandit Joshi spent four years with the guru learning the tenets of vocal music. Pandit Joshi performed live for the first time when he was 19 and his first album, containing some devotional songs in Kannada and Hindi, came out when he was 20.

Pandit Joshi has started an annual classical musical festival called the Sawai Gandharva Music Festival in memory of his teacher, which is held in Pune every December. Although a Kannadiga by birth, the legendary vocalist is settled in Pune for more than half a century.

His rendition of Mile Sur Mera Tumhara along with other doyens of music — Balamurlikrishna and Lata Mangheskhar — captured the hearts of millions of Indians.