Padma Vibhushan Dr. Prabha Atre (1932-2024): The Complete Artiste Breathes Her Last

On the eve of Uruka, Magh Bihu, this Saturday morning delivers us a shattering blow—more devastating because of its suddenness and unexpectedness. The legendary Hindustani Classical Vocalist and the senior-most artiste of the Kirana Gharana, Padma Vibhushan Dr. Prabha Atre has passed away in the wee hours at his Pune residence at the age of 92. Ragini’s Guru cum friend-philosopher-guide cum an away mother for both of us for a span of nearly 35 years has ceased all of a sudden, leaving us helpless and perplexed. It is very sudden and unexpected as, defying even the nineties, she’s had always been lithe, lively, active and spirited; she’s had been commuting between Mumbai and Pune constantly—still climbing the three flights of stairs in her Matunga flat in Mumbai and doing her creative work and teaching in her Gurukul residence in Pune. Madam, as we called her since 1990, was to perform tomorrow in Mumbai at the Sureshbabu Hirabai music conference that she herself started in 1991 at the Tilak Vidyalaya Premises, Vile Parle. Only last week she called up Ragini asking about her music and everything, and as always asking about me ‘Chinmay kya karta hai’ and asking us to come to Pune to stay with her. Our grief has increased all the more because we’ve been planning to visit her positively this time, during the last week of January, and this has come to a naught. We also feel helpless: in a repetitive cycle we invariably fail to be with our closest ones during times of death  or distress for reasons beyond our control which, naturally, are interpreted by others as mere excuses; this time too we’re unable to at least go and have a last darshan of the legendary artiste in Pune, because Ragini had a surgery in a Thane hospital in the last week of December 2023 and has been strictly instructed by the doctor to not travel for one month. We ask Madam for forgiveness and pray for the eternal bliss of her great soul.

Memories flood in. Ragini’s Guru Birendra Kumar Phukan and her father Sangeet Jyoti Bibekananda Bhattacharyya had suggested Dr. Prabha Atre as her future Guru in Mumbai. Accordingly, one day I went to the SNDT Women’s University at Marine Lines, Mumbai where she was the then Head of Music. On being directed to her practice room I peeped in asking the few ladies present inside for Dr. Atre. Her profound simplicity and modesty struck me the moment she came out into the passage with a warm sweet smile. I introduced myself and told her about the purpose of my visit. She listened very carefully and then gave me a telephone number to call her after a few days. For about fortnight she kept us hanging which, we understood later, was just to test Ragini’s sincerity and dedication to music learning and to pursue a career. Finally, she called us over to that SNDT practice room and asked Ragini to sing, also allowing me to sit on the carpeted floor of the room where a few other disciples were also present. And Ragini qualified to be the legend’s disciple along with some sound advice and instructions. That was sometime in 1990 and since then Ragini has been learning from her in various ways—in her direct class lessons, from the telephone conversations and through the conferences/stage concerts/lectures.  In her classes at her Mumbai flat as well as in all stage concerts I too was most welcome whenever I could make it. We were also blessed to have the love and attention of her lovely parents who lived with her in Mumbai. 

In less than two years I came to know the great artiste from very close quarters and discover the greatest human being in her. We got bold enough to invite her to Assam in March 1992 for stage concerts. To our ecstasy she accepted immediately and spontaneously, without bothering about the fees she normally charged that time. She performed at Ravindra Bhawan in Guwahati and also in Nagaon. She stayed in our Sankardev Nagar residence and in Bauli Bahor, Nagaon, like a most intimate member of the family. In a souvenir published for the Guwahati concert I wrote an article on her describing her as ‘The Complete Artiste’. To my profound delight and gratitude, she praised the article like anything, and later got it translated into Marathi and published it in a Marathi music journal.

Over the decades Ragini stayed and traveled with her on various occasions; both of us lived with her for some time in her Matunga residence; and she also came to stay with us at our Wadala government quarters for a few days along with her associate Dr. Bharathi MD. She occasionally involved me in hers books too and acknowledged my contribution accordingly. Apart from being a performer par excellence she’s also been an organizer of music conferences-workshops-competitions, musicologist-author and an avid music teacher-Guru.

We feel sorry that we couldn’t meet in her in person for the last few years, particularly after my transfer from Mumbai. However, she kept up constant contact with us, with words of advice, encouragement and persistence, both as a Guru and as a mother. Thanks to my stint in Mumbai Doordarshan News the legendary artiste was humble enough to request me for publicity for her various events that continued till now. In the meantime, she started her YouTube channel broadcasts and I used to get the publicity matter, dot on time every time. The last time she talked to me directly on phone was in September 2022 (her Birthday on 13^th September) when the celebrations were going to for her 90^th Birthday.  She gave an invaluable article on various music theories and guidance to upcoming vocalists that she wanted me to try publishing in leading newspapers as well as in my blog. In Kolkata that time , I put in my maximum efforts to justify her confidence in me and published the article also in my blog. Luckily, I still have the link to that invaluable article.

We have lost one of the closest persons on earth for us, but we feel she’ll be with us for the rest of our lives and that her music is all set to go on, forever. A Salute to The Complete Artiste. 

(A while ago I've received the confirmatory email from Dr. Prabha Atre Foundation along with the artiste's full bios.)

USA First-Time Co-Host of T20 World Cup-2024: New York to Buzz with Cricket!

Announcing the confirmed complete schedule of the forthcoming ICC Men’s T20 Cricket World Cup-2024, the International Cricket Council has expressed its happiness at the expansion of the tournament with never-before 20 cricket nations participating and the United States of America coming in as a co-host, the first time ever for a manor ICC event. Referring to America as the biggest sports market the ICC said that this would provide a huge stimulus to world cricket in the coming years. The 9^th version of T20 World Cup is set to kick off on June 1^st in New York and conclude with the Final to be played in Barbados on 29^th of the same month, the West Indies being the other co-host. The tournament, divided into four groups of five teams each, will have 55 matches in all out of which 16 league matches are to be played in the USA, and 8 out of 16 to be staged at the 34,000-capacity new modular cricket stadium coming up at the Nassau County, Long Island, New York, including the blockbuster India-Pakistan encounter on 9^th June. Team India is placed in Group-A along with Pakistan, Canada, Ireland and the hosts. Top two teams from each group will make it to the Super-8 which is further divided into two groups and the top two teams from each group will make it to the knockout stage. All Super-8 and knockout matches are to be played in the West Indies.

The other two USA venues are Dallas and Lauderhill, Florida. The tournament opener will be played between USA and Canada in Dallas on 1^st June 2024. While the USA, Canada, India, Pakistan and Ireland are to play all their league matches in the USA, a few matches featuring South Africa, Sri Lanka, the Netherlands, Bangladesh and Nepal are also to be played there. The rest of the teams will be based in the West Indies for all their league plus Super Eight matches that are to be played in the six venues there: Guyana, Saint Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados. The group-stage league matches are scheduled during 1-18 June, the Super Eight encounters from June 19 to June 24, the two semi-finals are on 26^th and the 27^th in Guyana and Trinidad respectively and the Final on 29^th June in Barbados.

The League Stage—20 Teams:

Group A: India, Pakistan, Ireland, Canada, USA

Group B: England, Australia, Namibia, Scotland, Oman

Group C: New Zealand, West Indies, Afghanistan, Uganda, Papua New Guinea

Group D: South Africa, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Netherlands, Nepal

The Americas are always known to us as the centerstage for soccer and tennis, apart from their excellence in Olympics sports. However, cricket used to be immensely popular there in the past till baseball took over in terms of popularity. And now, the reverse seems to be happening—baseball losing it and cricket gaining back popularity at a fast rate. The huge chunk of the South Asian immigrants there, the cricket leagues and the live cricket streaming platforms are largely among the factors to establish cricket as a major sport in the Americas, which is all very promising for the future of this money-spinning game as we mentioned earlier. This assumes more significance as Cricket returns to the Olympics after 128 years and for the fact that Olympics-2028 is going to take place in Los Angeles, USA. With the USA being one of the hosts for the T20 World Cup-2024, LA28 is set to further expand cricket not only in the Americas, but across the globe.

Having said all that, the format of the T20 World Cup-2024 remains disappointing: it’s too many groups all the way, except for just three knockout matches which basically means that nearly half of the twenty teams are never going to face each other. The round-robin format adopted in the one-day World Cup should have been there at least in the Super Eight stage of the tournament. In a genuine international event involving twenty cricket nations there are only 55 matches in all to be played in a period less than a month while the famed IPL features 74 matches for just 10 franchises, consuming around two months. The ICC should realistically rearrange its calendar to heighten the spirit of competition among cricket loving nations.

India Vs South Africa Test Cricket: Cape (Town) Fear Conquered!

India becomes the first Asian cricket team to win a Test at the Newlands Cricket Ground in Cape Town, thus breaking its 7-attempt jinx and conquering a longstanding fear. However, the dream of conquering the Last Frontier in Test Cricket still remains unfulfilled for India with Rohit Sharma being only the second Indian captain to be able to draw a series. In the two-day wonder that unleased in Cape Town yesterday, the second test match between India and South Africa in the 2-match Test Series, India beat the hosts by 7 wickets today just one hour after lunch and had drawn the Series. It was the strongest possible reply to the first test where India was totally outplayed with South Africa registering an innings win. The 6-wicket burst from Jasprit Bumrah cut short South Africa’s fightback as they began the day at 62/3 and restricted them to 176 all out, giving India a target of only 79 runs to win. You must have wondered at the start of the Series what Yashasvi Jaiswal was doing in the team as an opener, because he has emerged only as a specialist short-format batsman and to replace a performing regular opener (Gill) was something you, like this writer, must have found indigestible, that too after the endless quest for an opener from the likes of KL Rahul onward, and also the perplexing indecision regarding selecting Surya Kumar Yadav for the World Cup-2023 ODI team even though that lay very much within the short format. Perhaps the selectors wanted to try a left-hander which had become rare commodity in Team India’s top half of late. But anyway, the selectors got vindicated to ecstasy! On a treacherous wicket even the 79-run target looked ominous and a player like Jaiswal was just the need of the hour: a brave hitter who could entirely damage the opposition with his initial burst. And that was exactly what he did today after lunch—he made 28 in only 23 balls and did permanent damage to the hosts’ expectations with Rohit steadying the other end till the end.

In the first innings as South Africa won the toss electing to bat first the 6-wicket burst from Mohammed Siraj did them in for a paltry 55 runs in their own land, in their own ground, looking shell-shocked as to how a pitch, prepared and curated by their own people, could be so unpredictably brutal to they themselves, and this created a curious situation, very similar to that Ahmedabad pitch which proved to be an equally unpredictable nightmare for the top-form local boys. Or maybe in both cases.

Facing an incredible opportunity to try take a massive lead and conquer the Fear by forcing a big win India started well with good contributions from Rohit, Gill and Virat. And then the match delivered the second shocker which in fact became a world record: from a position of 153/4 India collapsed to 153 all out, that is to say, they lost the last six wickets for zero addition to the total, including the likes of KL Rahul and Jadeja. The match was back to square on, although all happening during the first day itself. South Africa added three more wickets to the day’s tally, and this created the third wonder of the match which too almost became a world record: 23 wickets fell in a single day and this ‘achievement’ is only next to that of 25 wickets that fell in a match more than a century ago, 1902, to be exact.

As for the fourth wonder of the match, Aiden Markram has become the first batsman to score an incredible century (106 in 103 balls) in the second innings while all other batsmen failed to reach a score of even 20 odd runs in either innings of the match. The final wonder of the match: this becomes the shortest test in cricket history by the number of balls delivered with just 107 overs bowled and lasting for one and half day.

This memorable test match is good for Test Cricket in yielding exciting results, even though ideally a test should last at least three days, like in Australia mostly. The match is also particularly good for the Indian captain Rohit Sharma who had had to undergo excruciating pain in that pitch-marish World Cup-2023 Final at home, and again after the devastating defeat in the first test match against South Africa. It is also to be noted that he has got the result without the services of Shami and Pandya, and Test specialists like Pujara, Rahane and all, or maybe the latter are no longer required. Pandya, already made captain of Mumbai Indians replacing the India captain, could possibly be fit only during the IPL. Well! For the IPL, every bought player have to be fit at any cost!