If I ask you to draw a line joining the national poet of Bangladesh, the revolutionary Kazi Nazrul Islam to Ustad Faiyaz Khan or connect the geographical Mecca of Music, Agra to the Trinity College, London or simply question about who took the very first interview of Pandit Ravi Shankar or who was the person who lead the research on acoustics in the famous ITC Sangeet Research Academy, many of us will be caught unawares. Just like diamonds lay covered under layers of feldspar and mica, the name Vidushi Smt. Dipali Nag shines through like a sunbeam suspended in the musical cosmos bridging these people and geographies in perfect unison.
Born in Agra on 22 February 1922 to Professor Jiban Chandra Talukdar and Smt. Torulata, Dipali was put under the tutelage of Ustad Faiyaz Khan at the tender age of 15 and there on, there was no looking back for this little girl. This voice that once would linger in the hallowed halls of the Agra gharana would go on to become the voice of renaissance of raag pradhan sangeet of Bengal and then go on to become an authority on music with publication of research papers that till today remain as the final word. She would one day go on to become the First Lady of the Agra gharana and become a force to reckon with in a male dominated domain of music where women from educated classes would not dare to step in.
Her voice had the signature layakari of the Agra gharana maestros where the words would be touched with elegance and wizardry of swar and taal and would transcend the line between human and divinity with effortless ease. She would go on to compose Nazrulgeeti penned by Kazi Nazrul Islam in his majestic presence and would weave her voice through the magical poetry of the genius turning every composition into a garland that would never lose its essence. Nazrul’s poetry was unmatched in words but Dipali Nag would do the unimaginable, she would match the bard’s words with her ragas, boltaans and bhaavs and what emerged was an array of chartbusters like Megh medur boroshaye and Riniki jhiniki jhini among many that would influence the musical pedagogy of Bengal with an indelible mark. In 2002, HMV released the original soundtrack recorded in 1977 named “Amar Moner Bedona”, a treasure-trove of Nazrulgeeti composed and rendered to perfection by one of Ustad Faiyaz Khan’s most illustrious disciples, Smt. Dipali Nag.
Being married to the physicist and scientific advisor to the government, Padmabhushan Basanti Dulal Nagchaudhuri, the man who was credited to have built the nation’s first cyclotron and played a pivotal role in operation “Smiling Buddha” , India’s first nuclear test, this was a marriage of equals. Her petite frame wrapped in charismatic yet authoritative demeanour would perfectly complement the sheer genius of the physicist who would spur her on in her musical splendour. She would travel with him to London and enrol at the prestigious Trinity College Of Music, London to study Western music while opening the Western world’s lens to Indian classical music and bridging the musical boundaries as she set afloat ragas over the waves of BBC . As she would later sit to interview Pt. Ravi Shankar in his first ever interview, as a producer at AIR, she knew exactly what the sitar maestro was wanting to do simply because she had done it before him. The interview still remains an archival interview in the lost frames of Prasar Bharati as an eternal classic. She had always had a penchant for taking on impossible challenges and coming out with flying colours and as only she could. One cannot skip to notice the fact that she was the only person who had convinced the legendary Bade Ghulam Ali to give his solitary interview on All India Radio. As the nation heard the indisputable “Jagat Ustad’s” voice shimmer on radio waves, the petite young Bengali girl would unknowingly usher in AIR’s golden era. Vidushi Dipali Nag had simply pushed the horizon for female musicians to step in and bask in glory of acclaim that not only had love but also commanded respect and in many ways than one, she had quite singlehandedly given khayal and thumri a pedestal that they deserved and brought it out as a flavour to be enjoyed and pursued in erudite societies as well.
In the premises of Sangeet Sadhana, the name Dipali Mashi is a name that is alive, you can hear her speak through the saptaswaras, smile during the riyaz, bless the students as they pass through the walls of the small school that is nestled in the lanes of Bangalore founded by her protégé Smt. Anindita Mukherjee. Today on her death anniversary and in her centenary year, Sangeet Sadhana stands in obeisance to the lady who could articulate magic, command respect and become the musical conduit to connect; people to people, academicians to artists and souls to divinity.