“Annapurna Devi… sorry, who?” There are many who claim to be ardent followers of Hindustani classical music but yet not have the slightest idea of who Annapurna Devi was. Such was the dark side of fame received by Annapurna Devi, a doyenne of Hindustani classical music, who passed away in the wee hours of Saturday.
Annapurna Devi was born to Allauddin Khan, a music maestro and multi-instrumentalist and was the younger sibling of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Her father was the court musician of Maharaja Brijnath Singh of Madhya Pradesh. He was born in present day Bangladesh but left home and came to Maihar. This is where ‘Baba’, as Allauddin Khan was lovingly called, founded the Senia-Maihar gharana of classical music. He was trained in veena and sarod by Ustad Wazir Khan, a descendant of Tansen.
Annapurna was trained in classical music by her father from an early age. Renowned musician Pandit Ravi Shankar, whom she later married, was also a disciple of his father and they used to train together along with Ali Akbar. It was during this time that they fell for each other and Annapurna married Ravi Shankar at the age of 14.
Under the rigorous training of her father, Annapurna became an accomplished surbahar player who then went on to train her father’s students including Nikhil Banerji and Bahadur Khan. During the time, Ravi Shankar had also gained popularity as a sitar player and the husband-wife duo started performing together. Audience applauded their performance as the coming together of two giants of musical prowess. But as fate had it, their association was not lasting.
Annapurna took her art as her father’s heritage and was committed to protecting it. This showed in her performance, and she was often appreciated more than that of her husband's. It caused strife in their relationship and Annapurna Devi took a vow not to perform publicly to save her marriage.
They had a son named Shubhendra Shankar, whom Annapurna trained rigorously to take forward their family’s legacy. Shubhendra was more awed with the glitz of stage performance of his father than he should have been with his mother’s talent. This jeopardised his life and career to the point that he left playing music and took up a clerical job in California. He died of pneumonia at the age of 50 in 1992.
Annapurna Devi and Ravi Shankar parted ways in 1962. She later became a recluse, keeping to herself in her apartment in Mumbai. She married Rooshikumar Pandya, her student, in 1982 who proved to be a great moral support. But, to add to the tragic story of Annapurna Devi, Pandya died in 2013.
Though she only had a short stint with public performances, Annapurna Devi was considered a virtuoso in her art by the audience and critics. Some even say she was a master of saptak taal, a skill Ravi Shankar lacked, and she would have been much more popular than every other musician if her career never ended.
A misfortune is that her music is lost to the world but her stature finds confirmation in her accomplished students Nikhil Banerji, Hariparasad Chaurasia and Nityanand Haldipur to name a few.