SOUND OF MUSIC: (From top to bottom) The cover of Mishra?s book; Bhimsen Joshi; Vilayat Khan; Begum Akhtar; the author (pic: Rajesh Kumar)

Amar Mishra?s neighbours know he is in Mussoorie by the sound of music. Every morning, the old boxwallah sits in his sunlit patio, with a tea-tray by his side, playing his favourites on his music system and sipping tea. The sound is soft, but the melody echoes across the hills, wafting into the living rooms of his neighbours.

It was in Landour ? a picturesque little cantonment town in Mussoorie ? that we first met Amar Mishra. He was on his evening walk, and had stopped by at a small tea-stall. ?I was with ITC,? he had said, introducing himself. ?Not the Indian Tobacco Company, but Imperial Tobacco.?

The conversation, taking its own course, veered to Hindustani classical music. Mishra ? who helped set up ITC?s Sangeet Research Academy (SRA) in Calcutta ? talked about the rare recordings, quite a few from private performances at home, that he had collected over the years. Faiyyaz Khan, Bade Ghulam Ali, Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar, Vilayat Khan ? he had them all on old spools and cassettes.

He had talked about his encounters with musicians, about Bhimsen Joshi?s fondness for Scotch, Vilayat Khan?s matchless performance after he had been needled by a member of an audience in Shillong and how often artistes packed their bags and left the SRA in a huff, offended at something that a Bada Saheb had said. He wanted to write a book, he said, but was afraid of being sued for defamation.

He finally did put it all down. Some Musical Memories, published by Rupa, was released by his old friend, Justice Leila Seth, in New Delhi last month. And no, he has not yet been taken to court. ?I know all these artistes,? he says. ?So I have been very cautious.? Cautious enough to refer to hard liquor as beverages, and to Scotch as a Scottish brew.

Mishra points out that the book ? a slim volume of anecdotes about some of India?s leading musicians, from Faiyyaz Khan and Amir Khan to Ravi Shankar, Vilayat, Ali Akbar and Amjad Ali Khan ? took shape because of pressures from friends and family. An old friend, the late Sujit Mukherjee of Orient Longman, had for decades urged him to write a book. Two years ago, when he had finally compiled his thoughts in a hand-written manuscript, a friend?s daughter took it back home with her to the United States and sent him a typed copy over the Internet.

Another friend got in touch with Rupa, and managing editor R.K. Mehra said he would be happy to publish it. ?I know Mr Mishra,? he told the intermediary. ? I used to go to him for passes for ITC?s sangeet sammelans.?

Amar Mishra doesn?t remember that, for he was always being hounded for passes those days as the main organiser of ITC?s concerts. ITC had by then morphed from a British company into an Indian firm and the classical music concerts were a part of its image make-over. ITC wanted to underline its nationalistic profile, and it was thought that championing classical music would be one way of doing so. Its first Indian chairperson, Ajit Haksar, wanted to start an academy for music, but Mishra ? his executive assistant ? persuaded him to first establish the company?s credentials by organising an annual music soir?e.

To win over the government, proceeds from the concerts went to the Prime Minister?s Relief Fund. There was, of course, not enough of gate money to make it a respectable donation, so the company put a hefty amount from its own coffers to add a few zeroes to the cheque that was handed over to Indira Gandhi. ?We wanted to show how patriotic we were,? says Mishra. ?It was a very good public relations exercise.?

The first sammelan was held in 1971 at the Vigyan Bhawan. Mishra remembers that it featured Bismillah Khan, Begum Akhtar, Vilayat Khan, Ravi Shankar, Bhimsen Joshi and a young Amjad Ali Khan, among others. Letters of appreciation came pouring in after the concerts, and one of them ? a note in Urdu ? was from Bismillah Khan. The shehnai maestro urged Mishra not to hold subsequent concerts at the officious Vigyan Bhawan. Khan pointed out that the desks in front of every row of seats increased the distance between the musician and the audience ? an observation that prompted ITC to move the venue to Delhi?s newly set up Kamani Auditorium the next year.

The music research academy in Calcutta came up in 1975. ITC found just what it was looking for in its executive director, Vijay Kichlu ? trained both in music and management. Kichlu reported to Mishra, and the two together built the institute from scratch.

Mishra remembers how they fretted about its first student. The academy was in search of some extraordinary talent, and the singer, Malabika Kanan, a friend of Mishra?s from his college days in Patna, invited him and his wife over to check out a very talented young singer she knew. Mishra agreed after Kanan promised him some great music and Bengali food.

?That was when I first heard Ajoy Chakraborty. He was a thin young man who sat and sang for us for an hour or two. My wife, who has an uncanny ear for music, whispered to me: Take him as your first student. He is going to make it big.?

Mishra, clearly, is no ordinary raconteur. His book is full of little anecdotes and observations. It tells the story of how Vilayat Khan announced at a concert that he would play raga Yaman, but veered off into another territory midway through. Audiences those days were made of sterner stuff. A ?rather cantankerous person, who also appeared to be somewhat inebriated? stood up to object. Khan saved the day by saying that the announcer had got it wrong ? he wasn?t playing Yaman, but Yamani. ?It wasn?t true, you know,? says Mishra. ?But Vilayat got away with it.?

Then, there is the story of how Begum Akhtar came for a concert literally and metaphorically in high spirits and had to be led away for laughing aloud while Bhimsen Joshi sang. And there was Bhimsen Joshi himself who asked for his favourite Scotch at 10 in the morning at a concert in Calcutta in the late Sixties. ?He gulped down a few glasses of his chosen beverage and started a Miya-ki-Todi. He lingered over an elaborate alaap and immediately, we were all aware that we were going to experience an extraordinary recital,? Mishra writes.

Mishra describes himself as an advanced listener (?I listen with my eyes and head as well?) but the 74-year-old writer has been a serious student of music for over six decades. His great uncle was the rajah of Purnea and often invited musicians over to his durbar. Mishra was just 12 when he first heard Faiyyaz Khan and Nissar Hussain Khan at a relative?s wedding. And he was all of 11 when he asked Bismillah Khan ? then practically unknown ? to play Bagesri and Durga at his upnayan ceremony held in a remote village in north-east Bihar.

He grew up in Patna, and kept in close touch with music mainly through All India Radio. During the Second World War, his father ? who was with the police ? would turn on the radio for news about the war, before switching over to a classical music recital. ?He knew of my fondness for music, but used to warn me to stay away from musicians. Listen to music, he would say, but don?t mix with the artistes.?

That Mishra didn?t pay much heed to that bit of advice is apparent from his book. By the time he had joined ITC in 1952, music and musicians were a veritable part of his life. He recalls how once, when his two daughters were very small, he tutored them to urge Vilayat Khan, who had been invited to their house in Guwahati, to play something. At the right moment ? after Khan had made a few remarks about Ravi Shankar ? the Mishra girls walked in with their request: ?Uncle, please sing for us,? they asked the sitar maestro, much to Mishra?s embarrassment. But Vilayat Khan, who loved to sing, promptly obliged them.

Mishra has many more tales to relate ? and some of the stories may be told if he writes his second volume. Meanwhile, he continues to spend the best part of the year in Landour, and the winter months in his house in Kautilya Marg in Delhi?s Chanakyapuri area.

And, as in Landour, when Mishra is in Delhi he likes to sit in his verandah, looking out onto a sprawling lawn, and play his music. ?I have to start my morning with music,? he says. ?When I hear the first notes, I know the day has begun well.?