MUMBAI:
Indian classical music
lost one of its stalwarts on Friday with
veteran Agra gharana vocalist
Pt Shrikrishna 'Babanrao' Haldankar passing away in Pune after suffering a
cardiac arrest
. He was 89. A consummate artiste, Haldankar not only performed, but was also critically acclaimed for his compositions that bore the signature feature of the Agra style--its unique ability to play with rhythm.
A chemical engineer by profession, it was music that drove him to quit engineering and pursue his true calling. "He was known as 'gavaiyon ke gavaiya' (a vocalist for vocalists)," said tabla maestro Pt Suresh Talwalkar, who performed with the late artiste on several occasions. Indeed so, one may add, because it would take a well-trained vocalist to recognize the challenges in Haldankar's compositions, as some of these are not easy to reproduce. "He had a deep understanding of not just the Agra gharana, but the Jaipur vocal style as well, having trained under maestros of both gharanas,
Ustad Khadim Hussain Khan
and Mogubai Kurdikar (the mother of renowned classical vocalist Smt Kishori Amonkar), respectively," Talwalkar added.
Testimony to the depth of Haldankar's knowledge in music is his award-winning book, Julu Pahanare Don Tambore (The Matching Of Two Tanpuras) -- a comparative aesthetic analysis of the Jaipur and Agra vocal traditions. The book has grown to become a definitive guide for researchers studying literary pieces in music and Haldankar received a state government award for the effort.
Babanrao Haldankar
is survived by his wife and three children.
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