Hariprasad Chaurasia

Some Lesser Known Facts About  Hariprasad Chaurasia

• Does  Hariprasad Chaurasia smoke? No

• Does  Hariprasad Chaurasia drink alcohol?: No

• His mother died when he was 6 years old and was brought up by his father. His father wants him to be a wrestler but he started learning music without his father’s knowledge.

• He started learning vocal music from his neighbor, Pandit Rajaram, at the age of 15 but later, he started playing the flute under the guidance of Pandit Bholanath Prasanna of Varanasi for eight years.

• In 1957, he also worked as a composer and a performer in All India Radio in Cuttack, Odisha.

• He moved to Mumbai to be a disciple of Annapurna Devi, the daughter of Baba Allaudin Khan and first wife of Pandit Ravi Shankar, who helped him in enhancing his repertoire of ragas and compositions as well as strengthen his career as a classical musician.   

• Annapurna Devi agreed to teach him over two conditions, first was that he has to unlearn all that he had learned until then and another one was, that he has to take the decision to switch playing the flute from right-hand to left-hand to show her his commitment towards music. Since then Hariprasad Chaurasia plays left-handed only.

• He shared a great friendship with  Shivkumar Sharma and people named that duo ‘Shiv-Hari’, this duo has composed many songs together for various films such as Chandni, Darr, Lamhe, Silsila and many more.

• He also served as the artistic director of the World Music Department at the Rotterdam Music Conservatory in the Netherlands and also the founder of the Vrindavan Gurukul in Mumbai and Bhubaneshwar. 

• He has collaborated with several western musicians, including John McLaughlin, Jan Garbarek, Ken Lauber, Yehudi Menuhin and Jean-Pierre Rampa.

• In 1968, he also played a song named ‘The Inner Light’, which was written by George Harrison, for Internationally acclaimed English Rock Band ‘The Beatles’.

• In 2013, The documentary film ‘Bansuri Guru’ features his legacy, and was directed by his younger son Rajeev Chaurasia and produced by the Films Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.

• Books such as “Woodwinds of Change” by Surjit Singh and ‘Hariprasad Chaurasia and the Art of Improvisation’, by Henri Tournier, also narrate various instances of his life and journey.