Sunday 11 December 2016

A tribute to the Bharat Ratnas

India is a land of artistes and art dwells in every nook and corner of India. One such legendary artist the nation was blessed to have was Pandit Ravi Shankar. Rightly called “the godfather of world music”, the sitar maestro was a gem of Indian classical music. On December 11, 2016, it's his 4th death anniversary and on this occasion, I pay a tribute to him and his music.
     A Bengali Brahmin, he was born as Robindra Shankar in 1920 in the holy city of Varanasi. He was the one who initiated the use of Indian instruments in western music and thus introducing the sitar to the world wide music lovers. He performed frequently with the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, and composed a concerto with sitar for the London Symphony Orchestra. Pandit Jee was awarded with the Bharat Ratna and also three Grammy Awards in 1999. Its quite interesting but Pandit Jee started his performing career as a dancer in (his eldest brother) Uday Shankar’s troupe. He toured with the troupe from the age of 10 and started his study of the sitar only at 18. The song "sare jahan se accha" written by Md. Iqbal in 1904 was put on tune by this great maestro only in 1945.
  Its not possible to talk everything about this great maestro in one small post. Though he left us in 2012 but he is still been remembered by the music lover across the globe through his music.
    December 11, 2016, its also the 12th death anniversary of another bharat ratna and a great musician Vidhusi MS Subbulakshmi. One of the finest musician India ever produced she was the one who was awarded by Bharat Ratna for music for the very first time. I had recently talked of her and her music in my past post. Here is a quite interesting fact about her. Like music she was also known for her Kanjeevaram saris. A particular shade of blue saris (known as the ‘mayil kazhuthu kalar’ saris)
became popular as ”M.S. Blue”.
Subbulakshmi passed away on December 11, 2004 at the age of 88. She had mesmerized audiences both in India and abroad with her music. As a person she was humble and had a deep compassion for the poor. She represented the soul of Indian music.
  These musicians were a real gem or Ratna for the country. They brought the Indian music at the global platform and gave their life to the music. We really feel proud to be from the country of these great musicians.Once again I pay my tribute to these Bharat Ratnas of their death anniversary.

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