Bapu Lal Shishodiya (1934-?) was a lovely warmhearted sarangi player whom I first met in 1977 when I was learning from the great vocalist Dilip Chandra Vedi. Bapulalji walked barefoot into Vediji's class at the Bharatiya Kala Kendra in New Delhi, apparently having just arrived from his village in the Mandsaur district of Madhya Pradesh, looking for work. With Vediji's help he secured a job as an accompanist at Birju Maharaj's Kathak Kendra—just down the road on the Mandi House traffic rotary. In the nineties I interviewed and filmed Bapulalji at home in Lakshmi Nagar, Delhi, across the Yamuna river with his sons Madan Lal (tabla) and Gana Shyam (sarangi)—who many years later, grown up, featured importantly in my Growing into Music work, teaching their own children.
Bapu Lal Shishodiya came from Parli, a village in the Malvi district of Madhya Pradesh. His father Ram Lal was a tabla player, so Bapu Lalji learned sarangi from his uncle Hardiyal, his grandfather Pura Lal, and his great uncle Bhavani Prasad. Bapu Lalji learnt singing from the age of ten, and then took up sarangi when he was twelve.
My first upload is of my first visit to Bapulalji's house, March 5, 1994. We start with a beautiful thumri in Pilu accompanied on tabla my Madan Lal who demonstrated his excellence on tabla in the concluding laggi:
Then he played khayal in the afternoon rag Madhuvanti:
Due to a tape problem, only the end of a drut khayal rendition of the evening rag Puriya Kalyan:
Finally a dhun in rag Pahadi:
More videos from subsequent visits will be forthcoming.
