Responding to the rhythms

Madan Das (L) accompanying the legendary singer Angur Bala on tabla in a rare photograph

'I am more keen to develop students than make money,' says Madan Das. 'I always feel both excited and proud when I see that many of my students are now well set in their career path,' he adds. 'One of my disciples, Niti Ranjan Biswas, who passed out with credit from Baroda, is now in Holland for higher studies in music,' says a jubilant Madan Das.

Although not born in a family of professional musicians, tabla became the second nature to Madan Das. At a very young age he took private lessons from Bhagirathi Das, a distant relative. His parents didn't want him to lose sight of his studies, so his tabla lessons came atop his regular schoolwork. In fact, Madan Das recounts his promise to his grandfather that he would finish his matriculation before he continued with his tabla lessons.

Eventually, after passing his exams he became a disciple of Bhagirathi Das and started a rigorous training schedule. In time, he began to perform at private recitals and showed both promise and maturity from a young age. From that time onwards, the magic of classical music had him enthralled and he decided never to play for anything but classical-based songs and compositions. Going against a popular trend, he avoided entering the world of commercial playback music.

During the many training phases, he also came to be groomed by ustad Sakhawat Hossain Khan during 1960-1971. For further training he took lessons from Udit Mitra Dey from 1971 to 1975. He is influenced by the great maestros of the Benaras Gharana--Pandit Shanta Prasad and ustad Keramat Ullah Khan.

'I had the opportunity to play with luminaries like Angur Bala, Shideshwar Mukhopadhyay, Suchitra Mitra, Kanika Banerjee, ustad Sagiruddin Khan, Krishna Banerjee and Dhirendrachandra Mitra,' Madan Das reminisces. He also accompanied the sitarist Imrad Khan and his two sons Wajahat and Irshad Khan when they came over to Bangladesh for a musical performance.

Madan Das has been performing since the 1960s. He had been involved with BTV, Chayyanaut Sangeet Biddyatan and Nazrul Academy since their inception.

While reminiscing on his performance in Germany in 1984, Madan Das says, that after his performance a few of the spectators came up to the stage to get a better glimpse of the tabla and inspected his hands carefully. They were so charmed by his performance that they offered to buy his tabla set as a memorabilia of the performance.

Madan Das feels that the tabla has come a long way since his early days of struggle. He feels that the work of many modernists like the legendary ustad Zakir Hossain have popularised tabla to a new height. Now, it is up to the new generation of tabla players to continue to develop and maintain this popularity in the face of competition from western musical instruments.