Bhimsen Joshi with Gangubai Hangal. PTI file picture

With the death of Bhimsen Joshi at the age of 88 on Monday in Pune, India has lost the last of the greats of Hindustani classical music.

So profound and exciting was his musical talent that he could move to tears not only connoisseurs but also the uninitiated. He may have belonged to the Kirana gharana, which underwent radical changes under him, but he transcended it as well, and sang khayals in an eclectic style.

Bhimsen Joshi was born in 1922 at Gadag, in the district of Dharwad in Karnataka, from which hailed other great singers like Basavraj Rajguru, Kumar Gandharva and Gangubai Hangal.

His father, Gururaj Joshi, a well-known teacher whose Kannada-English dictionary is still widely read, wanted his son to get a proper education, but music cast such a spell on Bhimsen that he would often leave his home with bhajan mandalls that visited their village.

He got his first musical lessons from the man who used to wash clothes at his home. But that teacher’s stock was soon exhausted and Bhimsen felt he needed to widen his search.

His mother, who sang the bhajans of Purandardass, had a profound influence on the child. Little wonder, he concluded his concerts with the bhajan Jo Bhajey Hari Ko Sada (one who sings the praise of Hari all the time).

When he was barely 11, he heard Abdul Karim Khan on a 78-rpm disc, and that proved a decisive moment in his life when he set out on his musical quest.

Bhimsen Joshi performs at the Dover Lane Music Conference in 1993 at Nazrul Mancha in Calcutta

Bhimsen’s journey all over India in search of a guru has become part of India’s musical lore. On his way to Gwalior, Lucknow and Rampur, the three great strongholds of Hindustani music then, the penniless child would sing in trains for meals and some money. His journey took him as far as Kharagpur, Calcutta and Punjab thereafter, before he returned home.

The guru recommended to him by Vinayak Rao Patwardhan was Sawai Gandharva, who lived at Kungdol, not far from his hometown.

But the path to his guru was long and tortuous. It took him three months to reach Gwalior. He met such great musicians as Hafiz Ali Khan, the father of Amjad Ali Khan, Rajabhayya Poonchhwale and Krishnarao Shankar Pandit.

At Madhav Sangeet Vidyalaya, the state-run music college, he was given one free meal a day, and it also gave him the privilege of being under the tutelage of Hafiz Ali Khan, who had recommended his admission.

Rajabhayya Poonchhwale advised Bhimsen to go to Kharagpur to be trained by Keshav Mukund Lukhe. But the latter could spare him no time.

On Lukhe’s advice, Bhimsen went to Calcutta’s Megaphone Gramophone Company to meet Bhishmadeb Chattopadhyay, but he was too busy with his cinema work. For some time, he worked as a domestic help at the home of actor-singer Pahari Sanyal, but Bhimsen tried to absorb as much music as he could.

His next stop was Delhi, but the ustads of the eponymous gharana asked for a fee that was unaffordable.

So he ended up at Jalandhar, where the Harvallabh festival was organised every year. Here, a blind singer taught him dhrupad. A wealthy oil mill owner, who was himself a talented musician, bought him meals every day at a local eatery, and Bhimsen worked out daily to build up stamina.

It was at the annual Harvallabh festival that he met Vinayak Rao Patwardhan, who directed him to Sawai Gandharva.

The first year at his guru’s home was a test of his endurance and patience. There was no musical training at all. This was followed by a strict regimen — his day began at 5am and ended at midnight during which he had to devote three hours each to the ragas Multani, Todi and Puriya. Gangubai Hangal, too, was under Sawai Gandharva’s tutelage at the time.

Bhimsen used to play hockey and football enthusiastically in his early life and to this is attributed his physical prowess that allowed him to perform with great vigour and vivacity even after 70.

His concert in Pune in 1946 on the occasion of the 60th birthday of his guru catapulted Bhimsen to fame.

He was a prolific performer who appeared in at least 10,000 concerts, many gratis. He was happy that Hindustani classical music had broken out of its former elitist domain, and that he could perform for large audiences.

He excelled in slow, reposeful and contemplative passages that sometimes built up to a lightning-speed crescendo that electrified his audiences.

Bhimsen was a master of a few rather than a wide range of ragas. Some of his favourite ragas were Mian ki Malhar, Darbari Kanhra, Eman, Puriya Kalyan, Dhanasri, Shudh Kalyan, Abhogi, Marwa, Puriya, Todi, Lalit, Jogiya, Bihag, Maru Bihag, Kafi, Gara and Bhairavi. To enrich his thumri presentation, Bhimsen had closely studied the inimitable styles of Begum Akhtar and Siddheswari Devi.

At one point in his life he had taken to drinking heavily, but he renounced it for ever after it took a heavy toll on his health and singing. He freely admitted that khaini or chewing tobacco stimulated his brain.

In the last years of his life, he made few public appearances. The only exception was 2007, when he made an appearance on stage in a wheelchair at the Sawai Gandharva festival.

Bhimsen was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 2008. He has not left behind many disciples. He felt that devotion was lacking today and that sangeet could not be mastered in a hurry.