Ganapati Bhat

Choosing Hasanagi, a little village nestled in Uttara Kannada district over big-time Bangalore to set up a music academy, and giving Hindustani classical music lessons as 'vidya daan' rather than charging a fee, is the famed Pandit Basavaraj Rajguru disciple — Pandit Ganapati Bhat Hasanagi.

Rajguru accepted Panditji as a 'shishya' only after a six-month observation period: Panditji had casually walked from across his room into Rajguru's home to ask this. Rajguru never took a fee. But being a 'shishya' meant learning music only when the 'guru' taught and lugging around Rajguru's giant pot of drinking water from his hometown Dharwad on his concert tours!

At his Gurukul, 15 students learn music living with him like family; poor students are given scholarships. A advocate of the 'guru-shishya parampara', he says: "No performing art can be achieved in a classroom or university system of teaching."

I have attended the following two concerts of Ganapati Bhat:

• Bengaluru Habba'07, Ambedkar Bhavan, Bengaluru, Dec'07
  
• Smriti, Canara Union, Bengaluru, Oct'07