Mohan Gopal Hemmadi has devoted a lifetime to bringing the greats of Indian classical music to the public by organising concerts, festivals and other events, writes Shyamola Khanna

 
Mohan Gopal Hemmadi has rubbed shoulders with some of the greatest legends of Indian classical music, hosted them at sold-out concerts and sat at their feet, listening to them pour their hearts out. It’s a privilege the 80 year-old enjoys thanks to a quirk of fate that decided he should be neighbours with—hold your breath—the Mangeshkar family in Mumbai.

Hemmadi grew up next door to Lata, Asha and Hridaynath, with whom he occasionally played a thoroughly enjoyable game of carom. By all accounts, many assumed that he too should have grown up singing like a lark. But he just didn’t have the chords for it!

“I cannot sing a tune nor can I play any musical instrument, although Pandit Pannalal Ghosh did tell me that I had the fingers of a flautist and I should try to learn the flute,” confesses the Hyderabad-based Hemmadi.

If he couldn’t sing, Hemmadi did the next best thing to stay close to the kind of music he adored: he dedicated his life to organising concerts for the stalwarts of Indian classical music, both instrumental and vocal. His ‘wall of memories’—studded with a lifetime’s worth of black-and-white photographs—is his favourite nook at home, and he gazes at it with nostalgia for all the years that have rolled by.

Head of the Hyderabad music club Surmandal, Hemmadi is fresh off hosting a musical event at the club on 28 May, in memory of renowned sitarists Nikhil Banerji and Purbayan Chatterji. In April, he hosted classical vocalist Ashwini Bhide Deshpande at a concert held at Secunderabad Sailing Club. She paid tribute to the legendary Kishori Amonkar, who passed away on 4 April.

When you enter his home in a quiet and leafy lane in Hyderabad’s Banjara Hills, the soft notes of classical gayaki immediately invite you in. Why, even the cooler purrs respectfully in the background as Kishori Amonkar’s morning raga floats up from the music system. His collection of music, photographs, souvenirs and books speaks of a time when life was simpler and the rhythm easier.

Born in Dharwad, a cradle of music in Karnataka, Hemmadi was raised in Mumbai but came to Bengaluru to work. “I failed Class 8 and dropped out of school. I started my life in Bangalore in 1953, selling coffee powder to hotels, but I later joined Kirloskar Electric Company as a helper in the tool room, at Re 1 a day. In 1955, I rose to the position of tracer and later junior draughtsman. I was a lover of photography and I also became the official photographer of the company.”

A business opportunity to set up a Lambretta scooter repair shop brought a young Hemmadi to Hyderabad in 1959, where he has lived ever since—but all through this, his love for music never abated. In 1962, when China attacked India, Lata Mangeshkar called the 25 year-old and told him she was holding the Mangeshkar Nights concert across the country to raise funds for the Indian Army. Would he organise the first event at Hyderabad?

Hemmadi couldn’t refuse, a decision that decided the path he would take for the rest of his life. He spent sleepless nights putting everything together for the concert, which was to host 1,500 people. And, then, the night before the concert, it rained non-stop and the shamiana they had erected across the grounds of Nizam College were washed out. The weather cleared up the next day and Hemmadi got his team to quickly clean up the mess. His first event was considered a success.

However, with all the pre-event chaos caused by the rain, Hemmadi forgot he was to be married three days later, in Bombay. His parents had given up on him but destiny was in his favour. Lata Mangeshkar gave up her seat for Hemmadi on the then solitary Indian Airlines flight to Bombay. She joined her family who were returning after her concert by train. Hemmadi made it to Bombay with 24 hours to spare!

Over the years, Hemmadi rubbed shoulders with the greats. He became a close friend and confidant of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan sahib, the Hindustani music legend known for his all-night concerts, who was also a resident of Hyderabad. In 1968, for a few months before he passed away, Hemmadi cared for the old man. “He was old and very heavy, he could hardly move and he lived on his own, no family, no one to take care of him,” Hemmadi recalls. One day, he expressed a desire to visit the Hemmadi home. On entering, he proclaimed, “Jisghar mein sangeet hai, wahan atankwad nahin ho sakta.” (Terrorism cannot flourish where music lives!)

Hemmadi’s informal musical circle, which consisted of family and friends, was thrilled to meet the maestro, who christened the group ‘Surmandal’. These small events laid the groundwork for what was to come, for Surmandal went on to organise large musical events in Hyderabad, which they continue to date.

“We have been blessed to organise all the top artists of the country, starting with Pt Ravi Shankar, Kishori Amonkar, Mallikarjun Mansoor, Shivkumar Sharma, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Chittibabu, Dr Balchander, Balamurali Krishna, and many others. We have also staged some local performers but found that people were not willing to pay to listen to them. It was very disheartening for us as well as for them.”

In 1987, Hemmadi was brought to another turning point in his life. He was asked by the Vazir Sultan Tobacco (VST) company to come on board as their cultural organiser. At the time, he was still running his scooter repair shop, whose reins he promptly handed over to his son Siddharth before he jumped right in. This was his chance to organise musical events full-time, bringing together great artistes while doing what he truly loved.

Under the aegis of VST, Hemmadi organised the ‘Spirit of Freedom’ concerts in every major city in the country. “The most memorable of these festivals was when the company conferred on Pandit Ravi Shankar, the sitar maestro, the Spirit of Freedom award, at Siri Fort in Delhi, on his 70th birthday in 1990.

“The highlight of the festival was when an orchestra played all of Panditji’s compositions and we could see that he was very touched. For the finale, Panditji himself came up on stage and with Allah Rakha and Zakir Hussain [father-and-son tabla maestros] on either side, and his disciple Parthasarathi on the sarod, he performed for almost two hours non-stop. I don’t think Siri Fort had ever seen so many people flocking to listen to Indian instrumental. There were people sitting in the foyer to view the show on the TVs kept there.”

Meanwhile, under the aegis of the Government of India, Hemmdai began to get involved in organising Festivals of India in Washington and at the Kremlin. “In 1983, I was on the subcommittee of the Festival of India in the US, when the panel was headed by Pupul Jaykar. I was given the responsibility of organising the opening item of the festival. I went to the US and met Pandit Ravi Shankr, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Ustad Allah Rakha and Ustad Zakir Hussain, and convinced them to perform free of charge as representatives of the country.”

He goes on to say that he was manager of the team headed by Pandit Ravi Shankar for the Festival of India in Moscow in 1988. “We were there for a month, with 40 Indian artists rehearsing with the choir and instrumentalists from Moscow. The main event was held inside the Kremlin, where 5,000 Russians had gathered to listen to the music. President R Venkataraman presided over the show. It went off flawlessly and the artists were given a standing ovation. It filled my heart!” Hemmadi remembers with satisfaction.

Things have come a long way since those heady times but Hemmadi is still organising musical events with gusto. He is also categorising and digitising his vast collection of recordings and video cassettes of live concerts that he has assembled over 45 years, including those of Bismillah Khan (shehnai), Bhimsen Joshi and Pandit Jasraj (Hindustani classical vocal) and Hariprasad Chaurasia (flute). “My ultimate aim is to preserve all the recordings, incredible memories for me, for posterity.”

On being repeatedly prodded, Hemmadi finally caves and admits to one feeble attempt to learn music. “With my friend Hridaynath, I joined a music school near Opera House in Mumbai in the early 50s; he played the violin and I played the mandolin. We met up with Pyarelal [of the famous Laxmikant Pyarelal pair of music directors] and the three of us used to form our own little ‘orchestra’. However, this enthusiasm did not stretch beyond three months!” he laughs. “Now I feel the regret; maybe if I had spent a little more time on it, I could have done well. After all, I have always been surrounded by musical greats. But, then, que sera sera….”

Photo: Shyamola Khanna

June 2017