Artist Reflections: A Conversation with Pandit Subhasis Bhattacharya
This was an audio interview conducted between January and March 2023 which I have translated from Bengali. It took me quite some time since my Bengali is not perfect and I wanted to be as accurate as possible. This was a really enjoyable interview because I learned so much about his life and music.
Good evening Subhasisda. I am extremely honored to be able to interview you. I really enjoy your music, especially your album Tablananda. I also enjoy your singing and other compositions.
Please tell me how you began your musical journey in childhood?
Good evening Sonalee maybe it is very early morning in Texas and summer. I will speak in Bengali. If you don’t have any problem understanding Bengali then I am speaking in Bengali.
My childhood was wrapped in musical interactions with my mother, brother, and sister, Smt. Sutapa Bhattacharya.
My mother was a great singer. Her name was Srimati Manjushri Bhattacharjee. She was a disciple of Pandit Satyan Ghosal from the Gwalior Gharana for a very long time.
Please tell me about your parents and family life?
My father, Sri Sunil Kumar Bhattacharya, was from Bangladesh. He was a very versatile talent. On the one hand he was a great football player, and played in a famous football club in Kolkata. He was also a great playwright, and involved in theater. He wrote plays and also acted in plays. This was an opportunity for me to get involved in theater. With my fathers inspiration I stepped into the theater world.
Where were you born and please describe what was your childhood like?
I was born in Barasat, a place a bit far from Kolkata. When I was four months old, my family shifted to Kolkata and we lived in small room, a 10 by 10 room, and another kitchen, 6 by 8. It was a small apartment that we got.
Here together, I lived with my brother and sister. My older brother was playing guitar, Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya, and my older sister was singing, Srimati Sutapa Bhattacharya. In the small story of my upbringing, one of the important incidents, was that when I gained sense, I understood that my mom was singing, my sister was learning singing from my mother, and my brother was playing guitar. Inside this small room there was music playing all the time.
In my house there was a small set of tablas. When my brother played guitar and my sister sang, my dad would play tabla along with them. My father, by himself, taught me basic syllable of ta, tin, thete, naga, dhine, terekete. My father taught me how to play tabla along with music. Music was very natural to me, and I quickly began to accompany my sister, mother, and brother. Some parts I remember, but much of this I have heard in stories earlier from my mother and later from my father.
We were a very cozy close family. We lived in an apartment complex which were like quarters with apartments very close to each other. If you come to Kolkata you will see, for example, 40 families living in one such building. When we practiced all of our neighbors could hear and everyone would come and sit and listen. So it was like having listeners all the time during our practice.
This is how it started. When I was 2 and a half years old I started learning tabla and started playing at the same time. When I was four years old I started learning vocal music. I learned a very nice Rabindranath Tagore song from my mom when I was four years old. I will record it very soon. I was surrounded by a lot of music all of the time. It was an unusual orientation to music.
How did you begin your musical career?
My brother made a name for himself, and started travelling to different places. My mother and father used to take us to all of the local concerts. I attended many concerts in North Kolkata which was very rich in culture. There were programs and events happening all of the time.
In this 10 by 10 room many musicians and famous people used to come. Now many of them have become very famous. My mom and dad took me to many concerts and these musicians used to come to our house. It was a very active and social place. Through this musical link I got to know many great musicians. It started like that.
Tell me about your gurus and the process of becoming a disciple and studying ant interacting with them?
When I was six years old my dad thought I should learn tabla properly from someone very knowledgeable and a great player. He put me under the training of Pandit Prabir Bhattacharya. He was a neighbor, and earlier I used to call him Kaku. He became my teacher. He was a very knowledgeable person and a senior disciple of Ustad Keramatullah Khan. Many people did not know him by name, he was not that famous, but his knowledge was great. I began my first training (taalim) from Pandit Prabir Bhattacharya. Taalim in Urdu and Farsi means taking lessons from a guru.
After Prabir Bhattacharya I began to learn from Debashish Sadhu Khan for a small time. Then I began to learn from the renowned tabla player Pandit Shyamal Bose. I was very small, 6 years old.
Pandit Anindo Chatterjee is very big after Ustad Zakir Hussain. From the last 26 years I am learning from Pd. Anindo Chatterjee. During this period, I have also learnt vocal music from different gharanas or schools.
One of the most celebrated theater personalities who revolutionized Indian Bengali theater and cinema was Utpal Datta. I was associated with his theatrical team for some time during my early years. I worked with him. I was lucky to be able to learn a lot of things from him. This was my achievement.
How did you learn to sing?
When I passed out of school 11 and 12, in spite of being a tabla player, I began to study vocal music at Rabindra Bharati University specializing in Bengali contemporary songs and Indian classical. In the university I stood first which is a landmark achievement with a record percentage score. I liked this place because many great artists came.
Please tell me about a memorable concert you played in?
During those days I played a very prestigious and memorable concert called Jodyabhatta Musical concert with my brother. The music concert named after the legendary Bengali musician Jodybhatta. Many great artists came and my brother and I played. That is our first debut concert at our young age of 11. A memorable experience of our life. At the time I couldn’t even carry my tabla bag and tabla it was too heavy for me.
How did you begin touring professionally?
In 1989, during my studies in the university, I got the opportunity to play with the legendary singer Pt. Ajoy Chakraborty. I started traveling and playing all over India and played almost 15 or 16 years with him. I started playing also as a background film scorer, private albums, contemporary music.
In 1996, I first travelled outside India and that was a Canada and American tour with my brother Debashish Bhattacharya. It was a big tour with three guitar players.
In 1969 I very specially mentionable three guitar players, from Asia, from Europe UK Martin Simpson, and American Bob Brozman with Rounder Records. We also visited Vancouver and played in a beautiful hall. This was a world tour of guitar. In my memory it is still fresh. No one understand my accent. I did not understand American accent. We travelled by Swiss Air Kolkata to Mumbai, Mumbai to Zurich, Zurich to Vancouver.
It was a very hectic tour, 27 concerts in 30 days, in America and Canada. It was very fun and exciting. They were driving and it was very fun because we visited many restaurants. We had breakfast in Denny’s every day. Unfortunately Bob is no more. Martin went back to England. So I have less contact with them now, but I have very fond memories of this time.
1996, 1997, 1999, three years, I spent this time with them. We used to play concerts in the Indian community after the tour. I met in 1996 from Quebec, French speaking part of Canada. Quebec Summer festival, I met someone named Daniel Thomas.
He was a tabla producer Daniel Thomas. From 1996 I met Daniel Thomas who was the personal sound engineer for Bob Brozman and also played upright bass. He also helped with the sound for the festival. He was a very jovial personality and we did fun things like swimming in the ocean. Still we have a good relationship and he is a producer of tablananda. He is a big part of my life.
Please tell me about your time staying in Santa Cruz, California.
In 2000, when Daniel was in Santa Cruz, Bay Area, Davenport. He had a beautiful house. I stayed in the house alone for 15 days. He had a wife named Nana. There was a dog his name was Milo. I stayed alone with Milo there. There was food and everything was set. There was a woman named Linda with a dog named Chocolate. Chocolate came every day to meet Milo. Linda and her husband came and we cooked. Sometimes he cooked and sometimes I cooked. Daniel had a big collection of instruments and records. This 15 days was very important. Linda and her husband were good pals,. We used to walk on the seaside. I started listening deeply to world music in his house and making a plan for my work. This listening helped me to make a plan for my work.
And of course, I had started playing for films, Bollywood and Kolkata. Film music of Bollywood and India. This connection of learning Indian music helped me to connect the influence of western music in Bollywood. Listening to world music combined with my knowledge of Indian classical music both vocal and instrumental allowed me to make the connection to Bollywood music better and understand the influence of western music on Bollywood music (such as RD Burman, Shankar Jaikishan).
Please tell me a little bit about your travels in Europe.
I started playing festivals all over the world and played with Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Indonesian musicians from Asia. Arabia, and Turkey. I began traveling Europe. I travelled to 75 countries in my life. Sometimes I used to meet Bob and Martin in Europe. I gave a BBC interview during this time. I also played with famous artists from India in some albums and they were slowly getting out. Famous albums were being released during this time.
Can you talk about the creative process behind your album Tablananda? I love this album. I was first introduced to your music when I found it on Apple Music. In fact, I think it is a masterpiece as there are so many different genres, instruments, and rhythms blended so artistically on this album. Each track is incredibly unique and spontaneous. The musical quality is very touching as well.
My Cd tablananda came out. It is a world classical music conference, there my cd was visible between all the classical artists album, this is there.
Now I am in France. From here I will tell you about Tablananda. About Daniel Thomas, a multi-talented musician, good father, great person, great sound engineer. They used to have conversations about Korean pop, Bollywood, J-pop, other kinds of music, outside of Indian classical.
I don’t remember the exact year but myself, my brother, and Bob Brozman recorded an album in 15 days in Moon Rock Studio, with Daniel, an exceptional, beautiful sound engineer. Intention Sound Studio, previously known as Moon Rock Studio, name of the album, in 12 days, named Mahima. Daniel was amazed to see that I could play so many percussion instruments in this recording. Also in the tour, I used to sing one song every night, which is an Irish song, in the trio tour with Martin Simpson and Bob Brozman, Oh Shenandoah, a sailors life, Irish song. Also I used to song a Bengali version of Hemant Kumar, celebrated Bengali playback singer, I translated his famous Hindi song to Bengali lyrics,
Chup Gaya Koi Re
Dhur Se Pukar Ke
Dheke ghalo kau hai
Nadir o par theke
Bhujlona kau hai
Monari e hal
I want to record this song in the near future. But in the newspapers they talked about his singing. There was great reviews of this show with this song every day at the end. With this we developed a strong musical connection with Daniel.
After this Daniel said that we should record this. I will talk to a company. This was in 2014, I talked to him about this record. He came to Kolkata, I found he was very interested. We started the proposal with the company in 2017. Daniel offered me the flight fare and some funds from the recording from Apple as well, to come and record this album in Santa Cruz, so I came. Then I came to his house, and everything was created in the house in Santa Cruz. I didn’t do any advance preparation.
The first piece was composed was there was on the inspiration of my dog Bhuli. The first piece inspiration was the early learning tabla bols of My first guru, Pt. Prober Bhattacharyya and the slow pace of walking of my dog Buli, when he walks slowly, when he was very little. These two things inspired him to make the first piece.
Kata gege thete kata
Kata gege nane kata
I created a Rap R&B type song with tabla. I was joined by Daniel Thomas and an extraordinary guitar player Bill Walker. He played amazing progressions. He played on 17 or 18 tracks. This song is called Bhulis Dance.
Thank you so much for your time. It was amazing to learn about your musical journey, illustrious family, early life, and all your creative pursuits. I look forward to following your music and future works. Best regards and wishes.
