Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia has devoted his lifetime romancing the
flute and accorded the favorite instrument of Lord Krishna a very respectful status in high echelons of Indian classical
music. The official biography of the
artist is like a much-needed whiff of fresh air with full creative flow. Biographer has avoided using high-sounding literary language and instead focused on presenting the
life of the artist in complete chronological details in simple and elegant prose.
The book traces the interest of a young child in flute that grows on to become a life long passion and profession. Young Hariprasad lived a very disciplined life under the tutelage of his wrestler
father, more so after the death of his mother. How he manages to defy his father wishes to become a wrestler and concentrate on flute makes a magnificent read.
The book beautifully captures Chaurasia’s growth from a staff artist in All India Radio’s Bhuvaneshwar studio, to his rise as an artist of international repute and finally dwells into avatar of a music composer for blockbuster Bollywood movies.
Besides professional achievements it also concentrate on his very private personal life about which not much was known. While in Bhuvaneshwar, Chaurasia had fallen in love with a singer colleague Anuradha Vasudev. But before they could marry, his father called him back home and married him to a girl of his choice. He couldn’t forget his ladylove and trace her down. She accepts his first
wife Kamala, agrees to becomes his
second wife and they settle in Mumbai. Yet Chaurasia fulfills all his responsibilities towards his father, his first wife and his two sons from her with second always in the know or rather many a times second taking the initiative. It makes you feel that living life with grace and filled with moments of happiness is more important than fighting over life issues. It includes his friendship with another stalwart of Indian classical music Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma, with whom under the logo Shiv-Hari he composed music for films.
The book also has many little known nuggets like it was Chaurasia who decided on the logo Shiv Hari or how the two managed to first convince Harvanshrai Bachchan to pen lyrics for a Hindi movie and later entice his son Amitabh Bachchan to sing it and give the actor a very successful singing career that is still going strong.All in all, a must read for all those who take pleasure in enjoying a good book