Pakhawaj player Mohan Shyam Sharma shares his passion for music

The year is 1981. Mohan Shyam Sharma wakes up rubbing his eyes. His old wristwatch tells him that it is 3 am. He sits up and starts rehearsing on his pakhawaj and does not stop till it is 9 am.

Cut to February 7, 2017. Padma Shri Wasifuddin Dagar is singing Raag Bageshree and Mohan Shyam, his accompanist, is playing effortlessly. Both are in their element. The years of practice they have put in have been well worth it. As the raag ends, there is a prolonged appreciative applause.

Born in April 1966, Mohan Shyam had his first recital in the mid-1980s at Kathak Kendra, Patna, before an audience of over 1,000. “Never did I feel any nervousness during any of my recitals, whether it was in Patna or Paris,” he says. “I have always looked forward to playing.”

His first guru, Totaram Sharma, had once given him a serious and solemn warning. “The pakhawaj is very difficult to learn and even more difficult to survive on,” he had told his disciple. “You will have to forget everything else and only if you are excellent, will you get recitals.”

Determined to learn and excel in the field, Mohan Shyam never forgot that early lesson. Today, he is celebrated as one of the finest pakhawaj players in the country, so much sothat he is regarded as the “ambassador of pakhawaj”.

Last year, he performed in the East and West Coasts of the United States, apart from making three trips to France, Italy, Switzerland, Finland, Germany and Estonia, where he was well received. 

He has accompanied all of the dhrupad singers from the Dagar family and has also played with Ravi Shankar, Asad Ali Khan, Amjad Ali Khan and Hariprasad Chaurasia.

Once, Kalyani Roy, the director of Cambridge School in Noida, heard him play and kept trying to get him to visit the school. “For a long time, I did not and then one day I finally agreed. She sent a teacher in a car to escort me to the school,” he recalls. 

They had travelled some distance when the teacher asked him to get his pakhawaj. “I was shocked as this was to be a mere visit. Anyway, I relented.” A recital was on at the school when they reached. “There, the principal requested me to play for just five minutes. Again, I was shocked, but then I saw the love and regard as she insisted, ‘Just five minutes’.” Mohan Shyam agreed “and I played for an hour,” he says.

The engagement with the school did not end with that one visit. Roy then asked the school’s principal to send a proposal to him to teach at the school. “I was stunned, but mailed them my terms and conditions,” says Mohan Shyam. The school agreed to them all. Today, this is the only school in India where the pakhawaj is being taught. “I have been teaching there for two years now,” Mohan Shyam says.

Mohan Shyam represents two gharanas: Nathdwara gharana and Bitia gharana. Of his guru (Totaram Sharma), he says, “He is very religious and very strict. He doesn’t teach everyone.” Totaram Sharma too learnt from two gharanas. First, he trained under Murlidhar Sharma of the Kudau Singh gharana and then under Purushottam Das, the pioneer of the Nathdwara gharana. The Kudau Singh gharana is also known as the Bitia gharana and is the oldest school of pakhawaj playing. Consequently, Mohan Shyam came to this confluence of two streams.

During his days as a disciple, Mohan Shyam used to attend all-night concerts in Delhi. Today, hardly any all-night concerts are held. Instead, people, especially the younger listeners, turn to YouTube. Older listeners still prefer CDs, he says. 

Earlier, All India Radio had no limit on the number of recitals by a musician, but now only one or two recitals are allowed annually, he laments.   

He has other regrets, too. There is not a single pakhawaj players of note in the new generation, he says. “I teach some students, though, both in India and abroad.”

So, has the quality of playing and singing slipped over the years? “The standard of listening has come down,” says Mohan Shyam, blaming the mobile phone for it. “It makes people leave a concert (mid-way) for something (more) important.”

On his part, Mohan Shyam is the happiest when he is playing the pakhawaj, a passion that takes him across the country. On All India Radio, he is listed as an “A-grade” artiste.