He collects what the ustads played and lost

On balmy Kolkata evenings, 48-year-old sarod player Somjit Dasgupta sets out on what he calls time travel through the decaying streets where the city’s feudal families lived. Here in homes that were near collapse or creaking with squatters, he would look for the object of his passion — antique musical instruments.

Love them or hate them but zamindars and nawabs were manic patrons of the classical arts. Dasgupta’s search has taken him across long forgotten lanes and mansions in Jaipur, Alwar and Pune. But nowhere are pickings as rich as in Kolkata which was the hub of instrument making in India for 300 years.

So when the Sangeet Natak Academy decided to open up a chain of museums for restored and rare musical instruments, Dasgupta made for an ideal curator. In about a month, the Academy is opening its first such museum of some priceless pieces in Ultadanga. It is a small project which is expected to expand in years to come, once old musician families, instrument makers and even junk dealers know where they will find a home for antique sarods, sitars, beens, surbahars, taus (a very rare and heavy type of sarod of great historical value) and sarangis.

“We plan to have several such collections displayed across the country. This is just a small beginning and we will replicate the experiment elsewhere once we find the people for it,” says SNA secretary Jayant Kastuar.

Dasgupta has his own collection of some 114 antique musical instruments, many of which he inherited from his guru, the grand sarod master Radhika Mohan Moitra. Radhubabu — as the iconic sarodiya was known — was also a part of a zamindari family that deeply reveled in music. Many of these instruments came to Dasgupta, one of Radhubabu’s youngest students.

Several of these exhibits were displayed at Vadya Darshan, an SNA exhibition held in New Delhi in 2001. An entire corner at the show was dedicated  to the collection of Radha Mohan Moitra. This display of rare and beautifully crafted instruments played by masters — the oldest was a sitar made in 1750 for the erstwhile nawab of Dhaka — wowed music lovers. It was then that SNA offered to liaise with Dasgupta on a collection and restoration project.

“For this project I am hunting for instruments that carry great antiquity, come from some significant historical context or were played by one of the great masters,” says Dasgupta. His best sources come from humble quarters — instrument makers, pheriwallas, and well informed music lovers.

He found the sitar of the great Ustad Waliullah Khan who gained fame early last century leaning against a corner in a dilapidated house in Manlali in Kolkata. All he knew was that the ustad had a home there once. It took a lot of Dasgupta’s unique detecting skills to sniff out the sitar where a family of tenants had, out of a sense of reverence, hung on to the instrument.

Then there is a sarangi that comes from the kotha of a baiji on Central Kolkata. And Ustad Abdullah Khan’s sarod came to Dasgupta under strange circumstances. Working on a tip from his guru, the collector had been looking for the sarod for a long time in and around Central Avenue. Around this time, Dasgupta was recording a late night concert at AIR in Kolkata when an 88-year-old woman asked to meet him. “She called me to her home in Maniktala. She handed over a sarod to me and said ‘This is Abdullah Khan’s sitar which my guru M Motilal handed over to me. I want you to have it because I like your music. Look after it for me,” he recalls.

Dasgupta has two partners in this project. One is the 70-year-old master instrument maker Mohanlal Sharma. The craftsman traces his history back to the court of Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh, a keen art lover. “We have worked with every great sarodiya, including Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan and Radhu babu,” says Sharma. Master carver Sanat Haldar is the other partner.

Dasgupta’s ultimate dream is to create a large conservatory where these prized instruments can come to life again with workshops and concerts that showcase their immense worth.