Many years before I watched Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bhaduri(Bachchan) starrer movie "abhiman".Recently I read about Annapurna Devi whose life was almost similar to the story of this movie.
Padma Shri awardee Annapurna Devi was a distinguished name amongst the Indian classical music players. She was an accomplished Surbahar Player. She was the guru of many famous persons like Hariprasad Chaurasia, Ustad Ashish Khan, Nityanand haldipur Basant Kabra, Amit Bhattacharya, and Amit Roy.etc. However, little is known about her as we never saw her performing anywhere.SHe never came into light as she didn't give performances in public. It is interesting to know that she was the first wife of Pandit Ravishankar(world known Sitar Maestro).
Daughter of great musician ataullah khan, music was in her blood. Even when his father didn't want to teach her music she learned it herself and this motivated his father to teach her music.
Pandit Ravishankar was 18 years old when he came to maihar to learn music and soon the circumstances made them marry. But they never lived happily as Annapurna Devi was far better in music than Ravishankar and this hurt the ego of a man. Ultimately they got divorced and Annapurna took a vow to never give any public performance.
She was a legendary singer who loved music and never used music for earn name and fame. Her upbringing was done in ashram like the atmosphere in maihar and her father used to call her as the incarnation of goddess Saraswati. She was one of the best musicians of her times. Both Shri Ravishankar and Annapurna Devi used to perform together and It is said that after performances, fans used to surround her and she got more appreciation than her husband. this made Pandit Ravishankar jealous of her. This difference kept on growing and their married life became troublesome. Even when she took the vow to never perform in public was not enough to reconcile pt. Ravi Shankar and they got divorced. Shubho, who was their only son died in his younger age.
Annapurna though, didn't give many stage performances, was respected a lot in her field because of her expertise and taught music to many accomplished musicians.
She was the recipient of, the Padma Bhushan (India's third highest civilian honor) in 1977; and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (the highest Indian honor in performing arts) in 1991; and the Deshikottam which is an honorary doctorate degree by the Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore's Visva-Bharati University in 1999.
She took her last breath in her Mumbai apartment on 13 October 2018. The legendary artist will always be remembered for her unselfish service to Indian classical music. Her voice will echo in her students who learned from her and now spreading her music in the whole world. She was a saint who silently worked her whole life to learn and teach and this silent music is far better than useless noises being sold in the name of music.
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