Q. 1 Panditji, after 65 years’ long career as a professional musician, today in the year 2008, at the age of 80 years, how do you feel?

Ans: Well, it is true that I started my professional career at an early age of 16 in the year 1944 as a staff artist for AIR, Lahore. I do remember very clearly as a 6 year old child when my father showed no hesitation in my giving up formal education after attending school for barely 2 days so as not to get flogged on my fingers or my hands by the orthodox school master at Udaipur school. Our close family friends and relatives criticized him for giving preference to my playing Sarangi than schooling. Their only question to him was that even assuming that I would be able to play Sarangi, where was the platform available for a Sarangi player in India. My father used to reply very politely to them that Ram would play Sarangi for the All India Radio. Thus, my father’s prediction came true in a literal sense. But it is a measure of his deep and abiding faith in my love and passion for the Sarangi that he did not care that I did not attend formal school. He instead made sure that my progress in music was not hampered at any stage for any reason. So in that sense I feel very obliged to my father for his foresight and for his support and guidance and his blessings today as I could not have achieved this status and respect of a world-wide audience without him.

Q. 2 What would you say proved to be the most important decision of your life as a musician?

Ans: As you know, I gave up my job at AIR, Delhi, in 1949 to come and settle down in Bombay which offered better opportunities to me as a Sarangi player. It pains me even today that I had to play Sarangi in film songs for more than 15 years to make ends meet because I could become financially sound only in the decade of 1960 when I had established myself as a Solo Sarangi player exclusively. However, in 1965 with the sudden and untimely death of my dear brother, Pandit Chaturlal I was completely shattered. He was a great source of inspiration for me and as a musician he was par excellence. With his passing away there was a huge void in my life. I became very depressed and could not even think straight for months together. I could see that to elevate Sarangi and my music to higher levels I must practice very hard. But with the responsibility of my family of 4 children and my parents came the added responsibility of of 4 children of Pt. Charturlal on my shoulders. Just about when I had thought of bidding good bye to film industry and earn my livelihood as a Solo Sarangi player, Pt. Chaturlal passed away. After much pondering, I had decided to go back to All India Radio and take a job of staff artist there which would have fetched me an assured salary of Rs. 800/- to Rs. 1,000/- at least in those days. However, my close friend, Roshan, the film music composer, stopped me from doing that. Earlier, at the age of 12 I had started teaching music in 2 schools in Udaipur as a part-time teacher. Then came Pt. Mahadeo Prasad Mahiarwale who opened my eyes and I resigned overnight only to begin my learning under him once again. Then in the year 1949 I gave up my job at Delhi Radio. So this was going to be for the third time that I decided to take up a job. This decision of mine could have ruined my music and me as I was at a very critical point of my career at that time, especially after the overwhelming appreciation that I had received in my first ever European tour in 1964 with Pt. Chaturlal. So in retrospect I can say that accepting the piece of advice of Roshan proved to be the most important decision in my musical career.

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