Ranadhir Roy

Late Pt. Ranadhir Roy (July 4, 1943 - March 25, 1989) was one among the noted maestros of Hindusthani Classical Music (HCM) of the 20th century. He played Esraj, a rare instrument in the realm of HCM. His contribution is there not only in playing the masterly renditions on this so-difficult-to-handle instrument, but also in modifying and modernizing the instrument and the playing techniques almost single-handedly. He was born and brought up in Santiniketan, the poet Tagore’s abode, spent his whole life there barring occasional tours abroad, and ended up as a faculty member of Sangit-Bhavan, the Institute of Music in Visva-Bharati. He was married to Prof. Alpana Roy (Choudhury), another eminent scholar in Bengali Literature Studies and an exponent of Rabindrasangit. As a person he was calm, composed and pleasant always while at the same time, he was energetic, enthusiastic about almost anything under the sun from driving cars and scooters to flying remote-controlled planes. He was innovative by virtue, and restless about his ideas, and hence enigmatic to some.
His musical journey took off at a very tender age under the tutelage of the Esraj player Prof. Ashesh Chandra Bandyopadhyay, another notable musician hailing from the almost extinct Bishnupur School then teaching in Sangit-Bhavan. Later on, Ranadhir moved on to learn from Pt. Vishnu Govind (V.G.) Jog of the Maihar School who was in turn a direct disciple of the legendary Baba Allauddin Khan Sahib, and then from Pt. Dhruvtara (D.T.) Joshi. The latter one was another enigmatic wonder of music himself, who learnt under both Aftab-e-Mausiqi Ustad Fayyaz Khan Sahib of Agra School, and the doyen of the Imdadkhani School Ustad Enayet Khan Sahib. Joshi-ji, it is said that, found his own unique musical style between these two very different schoolings and his uniqueness was a great inspiration for Ranadhir, too.
The ingrained innovativeness of Late Ranadhir Roy found its way in his music, too. Apart from bringing about all the technical improvements of the instrument in his hand, apart from all the pain-staking experiments he so loved to undertake, his unique thinking process also reflected in his music. He composed a lot of Gats for his own playing, some of which are now preserved among his disciples round the world, and he also visualized a few Ragas like Tilak Kalyan. However, not many recordings were published during his lifetime, though quite a few are still available in the personal archives of his students, friends and colleagues.
It is unfortunate that till date there is not much of a critique available on him, and hardly there is any printed material so far. Music enthusiasts should pay heed, and there should be more discussions on him and his stylistics. In fact, it won’t be a far-fetched conjecture to say that Roy set up a whole new brand or School of music in Santiniketan, whatever its name might be.

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