'Girija Devi was a trained horse-rider too'

KOLKATA: A purple suitcase lies next to her cot. Appaji, as

Vidushi Girija Devi

is called, had packed it on Monday and kept everything ready to board a flight on Wednesday evening. At the

MTV India Music Summit in Jaipur

on Friday, Pt Jasraj and she were supposed to have conversation with Prasoon Joshi before they gave a joint performance. But a massive cardiac arrest cut short her plans.

Manasi Majumder in Girija Devi's bedroom.

The packed suitcase, the neatly-ironed sari on her cot, the idols in small mandir inside the bedroom, the bed-side mini refrigerator stuffed with her favourite chocolates, the collection of 50-odd dolls from various parts of the world – all still seem to be waiting for her return.

Her Puja corner in her bedroom

She too had believed so.

Standing in her bedroom which has her things strewn all over, her ‘ganda bandh’ disciple Manasi Majumder said, “Before leaving home, Appaji had said: ‘Don’t worry, I will be right back after the doctor’s check-up’.”

When she returned to her musical family a day later, she lay embalmed inside a coffin. Instead of a flight to Jaipur, she embarked on an eternal journey to the world of music leaving behind a huge void at her ITC Sangeet Research Academy quarter.

Her flat now wears a lonely look. Everything remains just the same and yet the soul is missing. The music room (where she hadn’t yet started taking classes since she had just shifted from her first floor quarter to this ground floor flat) looks barren despite the presence of her harmonium, tabla and set of four tanpuras. Even her kitchen looks empty.

Outside, the clouds darkened. Soon, it poured heavily so much so that Majumder said, “Even the heavens have opened up. Like us, they too are in mourning. Not only music, she inspired us with her simplicity. Even before her death, she would insist on making her bed and packing her own clothes. Cooking too was a passion.”



Social media, by then, had been flooded by homages to her. Lata Mangeshkar had tweeted a photograph with

Girija Devi

saying: “Mahan shastriya aur thumri gayika Girija Devi ji hamare bich nahi rahi ye sunke mujhe bahut dukh hua. Hamare unke bahut acche sambandh the… Girija Devi ji ek bahut acchi mahila thi. Main unko shraddhanjali arpan karti hun. ishwar unki aatma ko shanti pradan kare.”

Pt Tarun Bhattacharya, Sanchita Bhattacharya and Pt Tejendra Narayan Majumder share Girija Devi's archival photos.


At the ITC SRA main hall, her musical family had gathered. Pt Buddhadev Dasgupta, who sat in a corner, was nostalgic. “I was 24 when I first got to know her. She must have been 28 then. Rarely does one come across a performer like her.” Agreed Pt Vijay Kichlu, Ustad Rashid Khan, Pt Kumar Bose, Pt Tejendra Narayan Majumdar, Pt Tarun Bhattacharya, Sanchita Bhattacharya, Pt Subhen Chatterjee, Pt Satish Vyas, Pt Samar Saha, Pt Debojyoti Bose, Pt Tanmoy Bose and film-maker Goutam Ghose who had come down to pay their respect. “Acknowledged as a legend in the field of Hindustani classical vocal music, she has over the years enthralled audiences in India and across the world with her exemplary performances. My sincere condolences to her family, her disciples and millions of music lovers,” said chairman of ITC Ltd YC Deveshwar.

Girija Devi's mortal remains at ITC Sangeet Research Academy

Some of them recalled the pain and longing that her thumris expressed when she sang them in full-throttle ease. Others spoke about the intimacy she shared with the idiom that gave an edge to her recitals. Still others exchanged recent and old photographs of hers on the mobile. One such photograph was of her embracing Ustad Ali Akbar Khan saab. “Perhaps in heaven, that’s how Baba has greeted her,” quipped Odissi danseuse Sanchita Bhattacharya, who along with her husband Pt Tarun Bhattacharya had dropped by at her residence on Sunday. “We shared such nice moments. She had wanted to jam with me too,” Bhattacharya said.

However, it wasn’t just her passion for music that had endeared Girija Devi to people around her. “Even if you met her for ten minutes, she would touch you with her warmth. She would notice even the minutest details. On Sunday, she asked me where I had got my nail art done,” Sanchita added.

According to her grand daughter-in-law Ananya Datta, Girija Devi was a trained horse-rider and was good at fencing too. “It was her father who had got her trained in horse-riding,” she said. Yet, music was her calling though pursuing it as a career in a patriarchal society wasn’t easy back then. Her husband - Madhusudan Das Jain - was a businessman. He was open to her public performances but didn’t want her to do private shows. She would wake up at 3 in the morning and begin her riyaaz at 4 am. “During those days, there were no domestic helps and she would have to do all the family chores. There was no free time for her since whenever there was leisure, she would devote it to music. I’d say, Appaji devoted approximately 14 hours a day to her riyaaz. At night while pressing her husband’s feet, she would request him to translate the lyrics of her bandishes,” her grand daughter-in-law said.

On Thursday morning, Ananya along with other family members will be flying with her mortal remains to Varanasi. “We will be taking a 6.30 am flight to Varanasi via New Delhi. We should be reaching there by noon. Her body will be kept at her Varanasi residence till 3 pm before the last rites are performed at the Manikarnika Ghat,” she said.

Her students, many of who live in various cities in India, will need more than a lifetime to heal. “As students, we are grateful to the help extended by our chief minister to honour Appaji. She had chosen a few of us with whom she would share rare compositions from her gharana including the ‘chhanda prabhanda gaan’,” Majumder said, while breaking down into tears.

Singer and TMC minister Indranil Sen was present both at the hospital as well as at SRA. On Wednesday, Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi came to offer his condolences to Girija Devi’s daughter Sudha Datta. “They had met on a flight and he loved my mother’s music. She used to read his book of poems that he had gifted her. He told me how much he had wanted her to set them to tune,” Sudha’s voice trailed off as the strains of a recording of her ‘Babul mora naihar chhooto jaye’ thumri rent the air. “At a concert at Mohor Kunja last year, she had sung this thumri saying; ‘I don’t know if I will ever be able to sing this in Kolkata again’,” recalled Pt Tejendra Narayan Majumdar.

Some dolls from Girija Devi's collection

Perhaps, she had a hunch.

Or, perhaps it was just one of those lines said without much thought.

Yet, what haunted everyone the most was the way she would often explain the metaphorical significance of these lyrics penned by Nawab Wajid Ali Shah and say lines like ‘Char kahaar mile, mori doliya sajaaven re/Mora apana begana chhooto jaae’ also referred to the lament for a person leaving his world.

On Wednesday, It was only befitting that such a Thumri in her own voice was played aloud as she began her final journey.

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