There was a time when Indian classical music was the epitome of allure and artistry, when dreams and aspirations got codified into ragas and talas, and when kings and emperors patronised the maestros with great aplomb. Those days are no more. Today, the musicians build brands, give lessons over Zoom, hold multi-city concerts and incorporate elements of electronica and jazz into their music. Some might say that classical music has lost its purity, with the advent of western genres like pop and hip-hop into India, and the rise of 'protest songs' and 'dalit rap'. As society got more fractured, musicians started using their craft to express their discontent. If classical music of an earlier era showcased society in all its purity, protest rap exposed the cracks at its core.
Enter Joydeep Mukherjee, who might be the Pied Piper we have all been waiting for, and who, with his instruments, has the power to bridge the past and the present. Since 2013, he has been working on reviving near-extinct musical intruments of yore. Like the sursingar, which evolved from the 16th century instrument, Tanseni rabab. In the late 18th century, the musician Ustad Jaffar Khan had been asked to perform the Tanseni rabab before the Maharaja of Kashi. Unfortunately, it was monsoon and the moisture had impacted the instrument's sound box and strings, resulting in jarring notes. Khan asked the king if he could return and perform in a few months' time. In this time, he modified the Tanseni rabab by adding a metal plate as the fingerboard, replacing the catgut strings with metal ones and the wooden resonator with a gourd resonator. The new instrument came to be known as the sursingar.
However, with the rise of the sarod in the 20th century and its simpler playing style, the sursingar declined in importance, until it became relegated to dusty corners of Indian museums. Then Mukherjee came along. It took him about seven years to recreate the sursingar. He modified its size and shape and tweaked the materials. The biggest challenge he faced was making it contemporary without changing its traditional aspects. Getting the hardware, like the wood or the ivory bridge over the soundbox, was also difficult. Despite the difficulties, seeing the finished product and hearing it played across India is an inexpressible joy, he says.
Since the sursingar, he has revived other instruments like the Mohan veena, sur rabab and Tanseni rabab. He has received many accolades for his efforts, like the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva award from the Sangeet Natak Akademi. His work was also appreciated by PM Narendra Modi on his Mann Ki Baat programme in February 2023.
Although Mukherjee is a classical musician trained under Pandit Pranab Kumar Naha, he completed his engineering and worked in a multinational marketing and research consultancy firm. In 11 years, he climbed the corporate ladder, earning a six-figure monthly salary. But with it, his responsibilities increased and he was putting in 17 to 18 hours of work every day. He kept in touch with his classical music roots by storing a sarod in the security guard's room and practising during the intervals. However, the long hours and the grind finally got to him, and he decided to quit and follow his passion of reviving instruments.
“My son was only two years old then and had not yet started going to school,” he says. “But with the support of my family, my parents and in-laws I took that tough call. I started reviving instruments from 2013 onwards and only quit my job in 2019, after ensuring I had sufficient money not to starve if my plan failed.”
Mukherjee says that his gharana—the Senia Shahjehanpur Gharana—is very rich with different styles of music and musical instruments. Still, the audiences are only familiar with the sarod and the sitar, despite there being 18 instruments that were played by the masters of the gharana from the 17th to the 20th centuries. Nowadays those instruments are relegated to our records and archives. They have become museum relics. “So I tried to modernise these instruments with better sound and tonal quality,” he says. “They are easy to play and travel-friendly. In short, I tried to make them contemporary.”
According to him there are plenty of takers for these instruments, as well as for classical music in general, especially among the youngsters. “I have many dedicated students from reputed institutes like St. Xaviers and the Indian Institute of Science,” he says. “I have seen a lot of zeal among students when I go to give lectures at colleges and universities. They might not get the time to do eight hours of riyaz every day, but they are a learned audience. Also, many young performers are emerging from this age group.”
Mukherjee's work is important because it is not just music that these instruments carry; it is also heritage—the traces of a rich past stitched into the seams of each note. We would do well to preserve it.