Opinion Pandit Chhannulal Mishra leaves behind a music that found its home in Banaras

When Chhannulal Mishra came to Banaras, he was in his late 30s and carried the intense training of the prestigious Kirana Gharana, one that he’d imbibed under Ustad Abdul Ghani Khan in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur. Born in Azamgarh’s Hariharpur and trained under his father initially, Mishra came to Banaras with a focused ambition to be a serious classical singer, who’d sing khayal. But this was Banaras, a city where musical traditions converged, where the spiritual and the sensual sat together. Where a musician couldn’t remain untouched by the Purabiya lilt in the cadence of everyday conversations over kachori and malaiyyo, or the dawn chants at the ghats, in Bismillah Khan’s shehnai, in the thumris, jhulas and chaitis, as well as in the powerful sound of the famed tabla gharana. Pt Chhannulal Mishra, who died at his daughter’s house in Mirzapur on Thursday, leaves behind a music that spoke to everyone.

When Mishra became the toast of festivals and music conferences, he was not just crooning the khayal, which he made accessible by softening its edges, but also the thumri, dadra, chaiti and bhajans — considered semi-classical in the world of music — with the heft of khayal. In fact, when he sang a folk piece like a sohar or a rasiya, it was tied into a raga in a way that it had gravitas for a connoisseur and clarity and ease for the masses. How can one forget the kathakaar tradition he’d follow — be it singing verses from Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas, explaining Ram’s birth and concluding with his homecoming. “Toh Tulsi ji kehte hain…,” he’d say, or sing “Khele masaane mein Holi Digambar (Shiva plays Holi in the crematorium)”, where he’d tell you about Shiva’s Holi with ghosts and spirits and how it was different from Krishna’s Holi.

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He made Banaras his home till the end, a place still steeped in the past. Mishra was cremated with full state honours in his karmabhoomi, where he started his career and where he encountered the soul of his music.