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Pundit Budhaditya Mukherjee

Pundit Budhaditya Mukherjee

Sans exuberance, sans flourish, an attractive incongruity marks the appearance of sitar maestro Budhaditya Mukherjee during his performances. The gentle boyish mask withdraws into the inscrutable intense concentration of a yogi, the eyes wide open and expressionless, the fingers moving with supersonic speed over the frets of his instrument. A purist marked by his austerity and silent aloofness, Budhaditya has gained the highest acclaim by the greatest connoisseurs of Indian music, and today stands as a giant among the contemporary sitar players of India.The world renowned film maker, the late great Satyajit Ray, had his breath taken away by this young serious genius. "Simply fantastic," he was to comment; "I felt stunned after hearing him. He is incerdibly good. Really extraordinary and his performance is soulfilling."

The king of veena, the late S. Balachander, was not sparing in his praise either: "When I listened to the sitar recital of Budhaditya Mukherjee," he said, after a Sangeet Sammelan broadcast, "I felt I was listening to the 'Sitar Artist of the Century'. God bless him with long life and a most befitting future."

Initiated into the sitar at an early age by his illustrious father, Pandit Bimalendu Mukherjee, a doyen of the famous Imdadkhani gharana (house) of music, Budhaditya has ascended steadily in fame and perfection. Yet, the young master did not start his musical tutelage with the intention of becoming a professional musician. Holder of an Engineering degree in Metallurgy, he was a topper in his academic studies and pursued his music simultaneously. It was only at the age of 18, that he realized that he could make music exclusively his life and his work. For more than thirty years now, he has focused entirely on his music, distilling it to a level of near-impossible perfection; and this pitch of perfection he attributes to his unremitting practice. And yet, practice (riyaz) for Budhaditya, carries with it the stamp not of exaggeration, but of the Indian classical ideal of steady aspiration, dhira.

"I have never put in more than five hours a day," he insists. In this, he belongs to a new breed of modern Indian musicians--urbane, articulate, managing an incredibly complex lifestyle, dedicated to uncompromising perfection in their art, but focusing primarily on quality, not quantity.

Budhaditya's father was a veritable encyclopaedia of the Imdadkhani style, having being trained in different aspects by many great masters of that school. All these nuances he has communicated to his son, who has fused them by his personal genius, into an extraordinarily original style. The Imdadkhani style is based on vocal music, and thus is known as "gayaki ang." Budhaditya considers his sitar to be an extension of the singing voice, expressive of its ornamental subtleties of emotional mood. According to Budhaditya, in this gharana, string deflections were enlarged to the full capacity of the instrument. "Khatkas and jhatkas form the language of the sitar and fullest exploitation of the aas becomes an important aspect of the raga development in this gharana."

Budhaditya's role model is the modern collosus of the Imdadkhani style, Ustad Vilayat Khan. In a conversation with the critic Amarendra Dhaneshwar, he says "Ustad Vilayat Khansaheb has been my idol. I have been brought up in the same tradition. Actually, I have heard him only six times. However, his influence is deep and all-pervading. The first time I heard Ustad Vilayat Khansaheb was when I was ten. I can never forget that experience. His music was a tremendous source of inspiration. Later on, I could rationalize what I felt. Khansaab was executing the very things I was learning, with a degree of perfection which got permanently imprinted on my subconscious." Today, Budhaditya's own level of mastery in this style is brilliant and dizzying.

Budhaditya does not believe in experimentation with form or mixtures. He plays only the ragas which have stood the test of time. He is uncompromising in his presentation, never pandering to popular taste. He has represented India in eleven international festivals, among his over 500 concerts abroad, in twenty-two countries. He has performed in over 900 concerts in India, featuring all the major festivals, and each concert of his has been a landmark. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Ustad Allauddin Khan Fellowship and the Kumar Gandharva Award. He has over two dozen cassettes and records and about a dozen Compact Discs to his name. On June 30, 1990, he created musical history by becoming the first ever musician to perform in the 'House of Commons', London