Doyen of Gur­bani mu­sic Prof Kar­tar Singh passed away at the ripe age of 94 years. A mes­sen­ger of tra­di­tional Gur­bani mu­si­col­ogy, an ex­em­plary teacher and a unique ex­po­nent of play­ing stringed in­stru­ments while singing Gur­bani -the re­vealed word of Shabads. A stu­dent and teacher of Gur­bani mu­sic, a doc­tor­ate in Gur­bani Mu­sic from Ba­nasthali Uni­ver­sity, Ra­jasthan, vo­cal­ist with tra­di­tional Tan­pura as ac­com­pa­ni­ment, Delhi-based Dr Harpreet Kaur pays a hum­ble trib­ute to Prof Kar­tar Singh, who was her men­tor and who im­parted her the nu­ances of var­i­ous styles of Gur­bani singing as en­shrined in Guru Granth Sahib.

BLESSED TO HAVE PROF KAR­TAR SINGH AS MY MEN­TOR IN MY JOUR­NEY IN THE WORLD OF GUR­BANI MU­SIC, I am sad­dened by the loss of this no­ble soul, yet I cel­e­brate the mo­ments spent with him in un­der­stand­ing Gur­bani mu­sic, its var­i­ous forms and his in­dis­putable knowl­edge about clas­si­cal In­dian mu­sic and the use of stringed in­stru­ments to bring out the flavour, sweet­ness, mean­ing and thrust of Gur­bani. I fondly rem­i­nisce about his de­vo­tion to the Sikh way of life while pur­su­ing his mis­sion of pop­u­lar­is­ing Sikh mu­si­col­ogy.

Covid19 re­stricted my meet­ings with him, but I stayed in touch on the phone. In a long talk in April 2020, this epit­ome of hu­mil­ity in­formed me that he had com­pleted 573 pages of the com­po­si­tion and no­ta­tion of Bha­gat Bani in 31 ra­gas. He had also writ­ten Guru Teg Ba­hadur Sangeet Darpan. As his health was fail­ing him, to­wards the end of the con­ver­sa­tion he wished that Akal Pu­rakh grants him time to pen down the Bani -the re­vealed word of the First Mas­ter -Guru Nanak Sahib with 18 mukh –main ra­gas, 11 mishrit -mixed ra­gas and 6 dakhni-south­ern Ra­gas.

The nona­ge­nar­ian mae­stro of Gur­bani mu­sic -Prof. Kar­tar Singh breathed his last in Lud­hi­ana, Pun­jab on 2 Jan­u­ary 2022.  Born on 3 April 1928 to At­tar Singh and Har­nam Kaur in vil­lage Ghu­mannke in La­hore dis­trict of West Pan­jab, he died in Lud­hi­ana in East Pun­jab.  He rose in the west and set in the east. 

Con­cerned about Sikhs los­ing their grip over the tra­di­tional genre of Gur­bani ren­di­tion, he was ded­i­cated to his life-long mis­sion of re­vival of singing us­ing tra­di­tional in­stru­ments.  He sang Gur­bani in Ra­gas -mu­sic mea­sures, as re­vealed in Guru Granth Sahib. Loved, ad­mired, re­spected and fol­lowed across the world, not only did he sing Gur­bani, he humbly fol­lowed the di­vine mu­sic and its mes­sage in his life. Pi­ous, hum­ble, di­vine, hard-work­ing with a never-say-die at­ti­tude, he was a leg­end. 

Hu­mil­ity was his lov­ing trait which was ex­em­pli­fied in his reg­u­lar sewa at the shoe cen­tres of Gur­d­waras and spe­cial Kir­tan con­gre­ga­tions. His stu­dent Bhai Narinder Singh Ba­narasi, Ha­zoori Ragi -Se­nior Singer of Gur­bani of Dar­bar Sahib, Am­rit­sar.

 A grate­ful man, he re­mem­bered his teach­ers Us­tad Gi­ani Gur­bachan Singh of  Bhai Pheru, Bhai Sun­der Singh Ka­soor wale and Bhai Dalip Singh. He used to of­ten say to his stu­dents of Gur­bani mu­sic, “ I want to stay im­mersed into Gur­bani Sangeet in the clas­si­cal style of singing till my last breath”.

The mae­stro Prof Kar­tar Singh not only sang but un­hesi­tat­ingly im­parted the skill of mu­sic and was a unique teacher, em­brac­ing all stu­dents, in­clud­ing those who could not pay fees.  Un­like mu­sic us­tads, he taught the best tech­niques and com­po­si­tions, with­out favour and pref­er­ence.  

Ac­tive till the last, he was a reg­u­lar trav­eller from Lud­hi­ana to Anand­pur Sahib where he served as the Di­rec­tor in the Gur­mat Sangeet Acad­emy. He had a dis­ci­plined daily rou­tine which in­cluded a com­plete diet, reg­u­lar riyaaz and a daily walk in the evening. 

He was the Baba Borh -the an­ces­tral 100-year-old tree of Gur­bani mu­sic. An ex­pert in Tan­pura, Swar man­dal and Dil­ruba, he per­formed Kir­tan with Tanti saz -stringed in­stru­ments only. 

He was awarded the Shi­ro­mani Ragi award in 2013 by the Lan­guage gov­ern­ment of Pan­jab Gov­ern­ment.  He was fe­lic­i­tated by the Sangeet Natak Acad­emy in 2009 and in 2012 he re­ceived the Tagore Ratan award. As he was bed-rid­den, he was show­ered with the Padam Shri in De­cem­ber 2021 on his hos­pi­tal bed in Lud­hi­ana. 

A teacher com­mit­ted to pre­serv­ing Gur­bani mu­sic, he trained hun­dreds of stu­dents and penned down a num­ber of books, promi­nent of which are Gur­mat Sangeet Darpan, Gur­bani Sangeet Darpan and Guru An­gad Dev Sangeet Darpan.

Three months ago, on a tele­phonic call, he asked me about my riyaaz-sys­tem­atic prac­tice and what I was do­ing. When in­formed that I was do­ing reg­u­lar prac­tice and teach­ing Gur­bani with the method­ol­ogy men­tioned in his books, he was pleased and de­lighted.  The pan­demic de­prived me of meet­ing him dur­ing his last years, but I will ever con­tinue to cher­ish mo­ments spent and lessons learnt from him. May he stay blessed with Akalpu­rakh.

The walk­ing-talk­ing-singing En­cy­clopae­dia of Gur­bani mu­sic leg­end is gone. Who will fill the gap? The onus is on his stu­dents in­clud­ing my­self.  In his fond mem­ory, I am de­voted to do­ing my best as a trib­ute to his mu­si­cal ex­cel­lence. 

Ti­tle Cour­tesy: WSN Reader Ajay Madan