gold

work out

For the last three years, I have been putting together a series of interesting anecdotes, revelations and pieces of memory for my book Gaanaryache Porthat unveils the other side of my father, the maestro Pandit Bhimsen Joshi.He was Bhim-anna to me, and though the bond that a father-son normally share when they are living together was absent in our case, the love never withered away. My mother Sunanda Katti was the daughter of his maternal uncle, whom he married in 1944. She always stood by him through the ups and downs of his career. My mother was Bhim-anna’s first cousin. I still remember how well Bhim-anna used to bond with Achyutacharya Katti, his maternal uncle and my maternal grandfather.Often, Bhim-anna used to load a sack with silver coins and, accompanied by my grandfather, would gamble it away. Later, I realised that this was an initial tell-tale sign of his nature that was characterised by flamboyance and lavish living. I still remember how he had showered flowers made ofat the naming ceremony of my grandson Pranav, despite having moved away from the family.Like I said, since 1951 (the year he married Vatsala Mudholkar), the family was shattered. For a short span of a few months, we experimented with the idea of living together in harmony with my father’s second wife, but it did notat all. At the time, Bhim-anna had moved to ‘Swadhyay’ bungalow on Bhandarkar Road as a tenant, and wanted both his wives to make peace with the situation.But my mother would often be relegated to attending to domestic chores, and there were bitter instances when Vatsala introduced her as the domestic help and insulted her. It was at the same time that Vatsala was pregnant with my half-brother Jayant, and we were still living together when he was born. The agony of sharing the personal space in a household that treated us in a condescending manner, and constantly reinforced a feeling of utmost defeat and seclusion, was becoming unbearable.Subsequently, we moved out of this arrangement and shifted to Limayewadi in Sadashiv Peth, where my mother, siblings Usha and Sumangala, and I started to live in testing conditions. Later, we moved to Kokil Chawl in Navi Peth and made do with the meagre Rs 200 that we received from my father as maintenance. My youngest sibling, Anand, was born here in 1962.At times, mother used to recall the golden days and would narrate how father had proposed to her by gifting a snow-powder box along with a ‘chikan-print’ blouse piece, promising her the world. However, reality was juxtaposing with the past, as we were living in times where father’s musical graph was on the rise. But, we were still battling destiny.Bhim-anna had a passion for cars and owned an old Duke as well as a Packard. Ironically, I used to walk home to Navi Peth after attending concerts at Appa Balwant Chowk, and father used to drive past, but would never offer me a lift.Bhim-anna was always under pressure from Vatsala and her children to not maintain any relation with us, and would often talk to me about domestic discord and fights with Vatsala. This was probably why he had taken to alcohol and had reached a point where it had started to take over, leading to multiple health hazards.There were times when he used to be so inebriated that he would sit in the green room for hours, and refuse to take the stage at a scheduled performance. What was even more disturbing was that he would simply go on drinking for days on end, and used to dread going home to his household troubles.Finally, a heart-wrenching anecdote that I still keep contemplating upon actually was a big revelation for me. In the latter stage of his life, I was once sitting with Bhim-anna, discussing music. I could not resist asking him, “You have mastered raagas such as Abhogi, Jogiya and Bhairavi with such refinement and tenderness. You had the effortless talent to make people cry with the beauty of your voice. I wonder how a man as soft as you could be so cruel with his own family?” My question left him in distress and he burst out in tears.My book, to be published by Shabd Publications, encapsulates the other side of Bhim-anna, his true self, his dilemmas, his likes and dislikes. I am looking forward to its publication, which should be sometime next month.As told to Ketaki Latkar