Opinion Rajshekhar Mansur, steeped in the learning of gurus, carried the mantle of Mallikarjun Mansur’s greatness calmly and deftly

Rajshekhar Mansur, classical vocalist whose music emerged from the Jaipur and Gwalior gharanas, who was trained by his father and Dharwad-based classical vocalist Mallikarjun Mansur, and like him specialised in rare (aprachalit) ragas and jod ragas — a specialty of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana — passed away in a Bangalore hospital on Sunday evening. The former professor and chairman at the Department of English at Karnataka University was 80.

Rajshekhar grew up listening to the extraordinary genius of his father’s music and yearned to learn where it came from. But Mallikarjun, however gentle he was as a guru and father, wanted his son to not face the hardships of a musician with regard to making a living. He wanted him to follow one of two sedate paths — medicine or engineering. Rajshekhar chose literature — it felt closer to music. He studied literature and linguistics at the University of Wales. But Mallikarjun believed in learning the art form for the sake of it. So at 16, Rajshekhar began learning from Pandit Neelkanth Buwa, doyen of the Gwalior gharana followed by tutelage under Ustad Manji Khan, son of Ustad Alladiya Khan, the founder and creator of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana. He remained a life-long disciple of his father. Rajshekhar’s style, because of his training in two distinct schools of music, was unique, with the subtleties of both becoming a distinct idea in his renditions.

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Since Rajshekhar had an active academic life, his concerts were few and far between. But amid a few recordings that can be retrieved on YouTube, there is one of Raga Bihari, where he sings his father’s famed bandish “Neend na aave piya…”. Every little glide is exquisite, soaked in bhaav, in a slightly nasal voice, without turning this raga of pathos into a flaunting of one’s prowess. That was Rajshekhar Mansur, steeped in the learning of his gurus, who carried the mantle of Mallikarjun Mansur’s greatness calmly, and with a deftness not known to many.

This editorial first appeared in the print edition on May 3, 2022 under the title ‘His father’s son’.