गिरिजा देवी

Girija Devi (8 May 1929 – 24 October 2017) — 'Appa Ji' to the music world — was the empress of the Banaras gharana who lifted the thumri from the condescension of the salon to the highest concert platforms of the world. Born in Varanasi to Ramdeo Rai, a music-loving zamindar, Girija began training at the age of five under Pandit Sarju Prasad Misra, a sarangi player and vocalist — first khayal and tappa, later widening her learning under Pandit Sri Chand Misra. Her childhood was steeped in the ghats of the Ganga, the akharas and the unhurried elegance of Banaras — and that Banarasipan perfumed her singing and her bearing all her life.

Her first broadcast came on All India Radio, Allahabad, in 1949; her first public concert followed in Bihar in 1951. In that era, a woman of a respectable household singing on stage was not easily accepted — Girija Devi melted the taboo with sheer scholarship and dignity. She carried the complete treasury of the Purab ang: thumri, dadra, kajri, chaiti, hori, jhoola, tappa and khayal — and in every form she told stories, as if the lanes of Banaras, the first monsoon shower and the ache of the forsaken heroine were threaded into a single taan.

From the 1980s she shaped generations as a guru at the ITC Sangeet Research Academy in Calcutta and at Banaras Hindu University. Honours followed her like a retinue: Padma Shri (1972), the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1977), Padma Bhushan (1989), the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship (2010) and the Padma Vibhushan (2016). She performed almost to the end, the diamond nose-pin flashing, the paan-stained smile intact. She died in Kolkata on 24 October 2017. With her went an entire age of the Banaras thumri — yet in her students and her hundreds of recordings, that 'Purab' still lives, like the dawn arati on the Ganga.

Girija Devi was born on 8 May 1929 in Varanasi. Her father, Ramdeo Rai, was a zamindar with a deep love of music — unusual for his class and time, he was determined that his daughter should learn seriously. At five she was placed under Pandit Sarju Prasad Misra, vocalist and sarangi player, who grounded her in khayal and tappa; she later continued under Pandit Sri Chand Misra, absorbing the full Purab ang repertoire of Banaras. As a child she also acted in a film, Yaad Rahe, at around nine. She grew up riding horses and swimming in the Ganga — a tomboy childhood she recalled fondly — while serving the long, slow apprenticeship of Banaras music: the festivals of Holi with its hori songs, the monsoon kajri, the spring chaiti, each season with its own form. Married at a young age into a traditional family, she had to negotiate hard for the permission to sing in public — and won.

Girija Devi's public career began with an All India Radio, Allahabad broadcast in 1949 and her first concert in Bihar in 1951. Over the following decades she became the foremost living authority on the Banaras (Purab) ang — championing not only the thumri but its whole seasonal family: kajri, chaiti, hori, jhoola, dadra and the fiendishly difficult tappa, alongside full-weight khayal. Her concerts were famous for their second halves, when the classical formality dissolved into storytelling — she would explain the nayika of a thumri, joke in Banarasi Hindi, then break hearts with a single pukar. From the 1980s she taught as a guru at the ITC Sangeet Research Academy, Calcutta, and served on the faculty of Banaras Hindu University, mentoring a generation of semi-classical singers. She recorded prolifically, performed worldwide into her late eighties, and collaborated across generations — her jugalbandis and tribute concerts making her, by her final decade, the universally acknowledged 'last empress' of the thumri.

Girija Devi's legacy is the survival of an entire musical ecology. The Purab ang thumri — with its kajri, chaiti and hori — had been orphaned twice: first by the decline of court and salon patronage, then by the classical establishment's suspicion of 'light' forms. She gave it scholarship, prestige and unbroken transmission, proving on the biggest stages that a thumri could carry as much truth as a khayal. As Appa Ji of the ITC Sangeet Research Academy and BHU, she trained and influenced singers including Sunanda Sharma and Malini Awasthi, who carry the Banaras ang forward today. Her recordings remain the reference library of the style — every serious thumri singer studies her 'Babul Mora' lineage repertoire, her kajris are monsoon rituals on Indian radio, and her seated, regal, paan-bright presence remains the very image of Banaras music. The Padma Vibhushan (2016) arrived, fittingly, while she was still teaching.

Girija Devi's art was the Purab ang at its purest: the slow, bol-banav thumri of Banaras, where a single line of text is turned, shaded and re-lit until every meaning it can hold has been shown. Her khayal training gave the ornaments architecture; her Banarasi upbringing gave them juice. She was a supreme master of the pukar — the sudden full-voiced call that cuts through a quiet andolan like a cry across the river — and of the kan-swar and meend filigree of the seated styles. Her tappa, with its whiplash taans, displayed athletic virtuosity she otherwise kept veiled. Above all she sang bhava: the nayika's longing, teasing and waiting were acted in sound, never sentimentalised, always dignified.

• The Banaras bol-banav thumri: one line, a hundred meanings
• The heart-piercing pukar, like a call from across the river
• Whiplash tappa taans of athletic virtuosity
• The juice of the seasons in kajri, chaiti and hori
• Shringar wrapped in dignity — emotion always poised