Taking advantage of the gap between the themes, I would like to share some of my

favourite recordings from my collection. I have had the priviledge of knowing t

his man from rather close quarters, when I was just a child stepping over the th
reshold of teendom, and much of what I saw & heard I haven't retained, perhaps b
ecause of my sheer inability to take it all in.
"Botukda" was all I knew him as, and I never really bothered to find out what hi
s "poshaaki" name was back then. All I have left with are memories of him poppin
g into our house in Gariahat from time to time & the animated discussions began
with my father, sometimes much to the annoyance of my uncles & aunts who clearly
couldn't see what the fuss was about. His beginnings as an integral part of the
cultural wing of (soon to be outlawed) CPI (which later merged into IPTA ) alon
g with Binoy Roy, Bijon Bhattacharya & Shombhu Mitra, were of course well outsid
e the scope of my consciousness.
Inevitably, after several rounds of tea & muri, he would reach for the harmonium
. At times he would just sing some of his own compositions, from Nabajiboner Gaa
n or Smriti Shotta Bhobishyot to Lombokarno Pala. And sometimes when his creativ
e juices were in full flow, I have seen him grab literally any piece of writing
and set it to tune. One of my fondest memories, which I will carry with me to my
last breath, is of Botukda just for a lark grabbing Shohojpaath and transformin
g " Steamer ashiche ghaate, bohe gelo bela" into a song of astonishing appeal. T
hat tune has stayed with me for ever, along with his myriad other creations.
My father , however, used to always cite his singing of Rabindra Sangeet as the
ultimate example of his musical sensibility. And indeed, I remember a room full
of people completely dumbfounded while he sang " Chitto amaar haralo aaj", and i
f it wasn't raining inside the room no one knew it. One of his trade marks was h
e would always introduce the raag of the song with a little alaap, before he beg
an the song itself. Being classically trained, Botukda used to prefer singing RS
that was classically tinged, or built around trickly rhythmic lines. Of course
he never even imagined preserving this for posterity on gramophone record, and i
t is only due to the alertness of some individuals that we can still hear this a
mazing interpreter of RS.
Here is Jyotirindra Moitra singing Chitto amaar haralo, with nothing but a harmo
nium & random ambient sounds as accompaniment. Typically , he starts with a dhru
pad style alaap in Miya ki mallhar.