Page 36 - Seniors Today -April20
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bit in Maai’s service, but that would pale in
front of what Smt Kishoritai did for Maai
during those difficult years.
Sad meeting
I was in the USA during early 2001, and,
by a miraculous coincidence, had come to
Mumbai for a brief visit during the first
week of February. To my shock, Maai was
in the hospital then. On that fateful evening
of February 10, I had the sad privilege of
Complete mastery over taal and laya was one of her
characteristics meeting her in the intensive care room. She
born in 1908, and Maai was born in 1904. recognised me, asked when I had returned,
My father grew up in Sangli, and was in and held my hand weakly. I responded,
high school during 1918-20. He told me saying we were all waiting for her to recover
that every day while walking back from and return home, knowing fully well that
school, his path went by a house from where this pep-talk was really not called for, as she
during that time each evening, he regularly was sinking. One last time she said “Dev
heard a male voice giving lessons to a Bare Karo”. I went out, waited, and in just a
female singer. My father said that he was few minutes, word came that she had left for
incredibly spellbound by the articulation her heavenly abode. Providence had it that I
of the phrases, and their immediate and was to receive her blessings for the last time
faithful reproduction by the female singer. before she bid farewell to all of us!
He would stand there for several minutes, I have reminisced about Maai as a person,
enjoy the beautiful Riyaaz, and then proceed and about how special she has always been
home. So he asked me to check with Maai in my heart. She was truly a Saint! As to her
whether she ever lived in Sangli and took superhuman tapashcharya in perfecting
lessons from any Guru there. Sure enough, her gayaki that she inherited from her
Maai confirmed to me that she did stay in Gurus, with single-minded dedication and
Sangli during those years, and it was indeed discipline, and as to the intricacies of her
late Ustaad Alladiya Khan that used to give music in its multiple facets, I have already
her lessons. By sheer providence, my father said that there are many others who are far
regularly heard their Riyaaz every day for greater in musical stature than I, having
some minutes! been long-time disciples of Maai, who
During the years when Maai began to can speak far more authoritatively than I
decline in health perceptibly, she came can. My own Guru and Maai’s illustrious
back to live with Smt Kishoritai, who daughter and disciple Gaan-Saraswati
bore the brunt of the care and service that Smt Kishoritai towers highest among all of
Maai needed day and night. She spared no them. I would be a dwarf among them all
amount of devotion, and provided, almost in speaking about Maai’s musical genius.
single-handedly, the highest medical care, Nevertheless, these are my own humble
including prolonged bouts of hospitalisation. tributes to the revered memory of Maai that I
Maai’s devotees like me did our own little will always cherish in my heart.
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