Unsung Artist

When Ustad Mehmood Dholpuri decided to play the harmonium,he elevated the humble instrument. The harmonium was banned on AIR until early 1940s owing to its lack of intonation capacity. But it has been ubiquitous on the subcontinent’s musical scene,thanks to Dholpuri working on its resurrection for a long time. Yet,when the 58-year-old maestro,a Padma Shri awardee,passed away last month,the death went unnoticed by the mainstream media. Only a few bloggers discussed him and circulated his old videos on YouTube. In one of these,one can see Dholpuri,a diminutive man with a moustache,playing with Ustad Zakir Hussain,while another shows him with Pandit Rajan and Sajan Mishra.

“He played with us for over 38 years. It is disappointing when the demise of an artiste of his stature goes unnoticed. His brilliance lay in how brilliantly,yet unobtrusively,he would accompany an artiste,” says Sajan Mishra.

Dholpuri belonged to a family of sarangi players that lived in Dholpur,a district in Rajasthan. He began learning the sarangi from his father,but a glimpse of Joy Mukherjee playing the harmonium in Love in Tokyo,“and the sound of it had him smitten,” says Fakruddin,Dholpuri’s son.

The musician played with some of the most acclaimed artistes of our times. From Pandit Bhimsen Joshi,Kishori Amonkar to Ashwini Bhide Deshpande,Shubha Mudgal and Meeta Pandit — there are generations of musicians that Dholpuri performed with. “He began playing with my mother and when he began to work with me,it was a natural progression. He was not academically educated,but his musical prowess was beyond anybody else in the country,” says Bhide Deshpande.

Fakruddin was not in India when his father expired and now he is fighting for his family to inherit his father’s job at the University of Delhi. “My brother,who is also a harmonium player,should get that post since we need to run our family,” says Fakruddin.