Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi Biography and Works.

Pandit Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi, from February 4, 1922 January 24, 2011, was an Indian vocalist in the Hindustani classical tradition. A member of the Kirana Gharana, he is renowned for the khayal form of singing, as well as for his popular renditions of devotional music, bhajans and abhangs. He was the most recent recipient of the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour, awarded in 2008.

Joshi was born into a Kannada Madhwa Brahmin family in the town of Ron, now in the Gadag district of northern Karnataka. His father, Gururaj Joshi, was a school teacher.

Bhimsen was the eldest in a family of ’16 siblings. Some of the siblings still live in their ancestral home in Gadag. Bhimsen lost his mother when he was young, and his stepmother then raised him. His parents lived initially with his grandfather as tenants of a Kulkarni household, but then moved to Gadag District.

As a child, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi’s craving for music was evident to his family as he managed to lay his hands on a ‘tanpura’ used by his ‘Kirtankar’ grandfather, which had been kept away from his gaze at home. Music had such a magnetic pull over him that a ‘bhajan singing procession or just “Azaan’ from a nearby mosque was said to draw him out of house.

Trivia

Until the first half of the 20th century, khayal was principally taught in the Guru Shishya (master-disciple) tradition.