Hariprasad Chaurasia

The master flautist’s personal life is considered quite controversial as he married twice. His first wife was Kamala Devi whom he married in 1957. After sometime he married Anuradha ‘Angurbala’ Roy. He has two sons, Ajay and Vinay with Kamala and one son, Rajeev, with Anuradha.

Hariprasad Chaurasia was born on July 1, 1938, in Allahabad, India. His father was a wrestler. Unfortunately his mother died when the boy was just six years old.

His father wanted him to become a wrestler like himself, and even arranged for him to get training in this field. However, Hariprasad’s real interest lay somewhere else and he had to pursue this passion without the knowledge of his father.

He had an inborn love for music though no one in his family was musically inclined. He loved music so much that he secretly started learning classical vocal technique from his neighbor, Pandit Rajaram, when he was 15.

He met a famous flautist, Pandit Bholanath Prasanna of Varanasi, and was deeply influenced by him. He switched to playing flute and studied under his tutelage for the next eight years.

Even though he was not meant to be a wrestler, the initial training he received in wrestling helped him build stamina and lung power which proved beneficial for his musical career as a flautist.

He joined the All India Radio (AIR), Cuttack, Odisha, in 1957 as a regular staff artiste. Here he performed as a flautist and also wrote compositions. In 1960 he was transferred by AIR Cuttack to Mumbai.

While in Mumbai he met the Surbahar player, Annapurna Devi, the daughter of Baba Allaudin Khan and requested her to teach him. She agreed on the condition that he switched from right-handed to left-handed playing. He did and she guided him.

He blossomed as a flautist under the tutelage of Annapurna Devi. Soon the ambitious young man left AIR to pursue an independent career.

Blessed with inherent talent, a passion for music and determination, he made a name for himself as a renowned flautist over the years not just in India but also abroad.

During the 1960s he teamed up with the Santoor player, Shivkumar Sharma, and the duo used to perform as ‘Shiv-Hari’. They worked on Indian classical music pieces and contributed to musical scores in Hindi movies.

In 1992, he was presented with the Padma Bhushan Award, India's third highest civilian honour, for his contribution to the field of arts.

He was awarded the Padma Vibushan, the second highest civilian award in India, in 2000 for his exceptional service to the nation in arts.

He was appointed as Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters in appreciation of the significant contribution he has made to spread culture in France and the rest of the World by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of France, in 2009.