I was born at the Kabeer Chowraha Mohalla of Varanasi. Both, my father Pandit Hari Maharaj and uncle, Kanthe Maharaj, were very famous tabla players of their time. My grandfather had two buildings constructed in the same area. So my father and uncle lived in two different houses. For the first three years I took lessons from my father. After that my uncle, who didn’t have a child, adopted me as his son. When I turned six years old, my grandfather brought me some sweets, clothes and agarbatti, performed some rites and took me to Pandit Kanthe Maharaj for the narabandi ceremony. That was my formal initiation into the world of music. Then on, I started taking lessons from my uncle. People say that I was quite intelligent as a child. Whenever my father had a performance, I went with him and after coming back home, I sat with the tabla and played all that my father had played. My father’s students were my audience.

As a child I was quite weak. Most of the time I had fever or cough. Anyway, that didn’t stop me from being naughty. My father used to keep honey in a bottle and I used to steal a sip every afternoon, when everybody else at home was asleep. My father had asked me once or twice and I denied stealing any honey. Finally, one afternoon, when I happily took a sip, I screamed in horror and the entire family woke up. My father had poured mustard oil in the bottle to catch me stealing!

There was a famous kaviraj at that time. His name was Triyambak Shastri. A Maharashtrian, he had settled in Varanasi and was a great music lover. He invited my father to perform at his house and I went along with him. My father performed with a famous sarangi player of that time, Pt Sur Sahay Mishra. At the end of the performance I was introduced to Shastriji and I performed for 30 minutes. Shastriji was thrilled with my performance and wanted to give me five rupees. But my father asked him to bless me instead of giving me money. I remember Shastriji scolded my father for my sickly disposition, saying my body requires ‘soil and meat’. That was it. I started going to akharas and eating non-vegetarian food and soon I started feeling better and stronger.

Apart from swimming and horse riding, I enjoyed cycling and could cover five to six kilometres in a jiffy. I couldn’t get an academic education because music was the only education encouraged in my family. Still, I managed to learn Hindi and Sanskrit from the pundit who used to perform puja at our house. Also, I learnt English from one of my father’s Bengali student. His name was Ashutosh Bhattacharya. I learnt painting from Jadu Nath Supkar, student of famous artist Nandalal Bose.