Kalyan Mukherjea
Encyclopedia
Kalyan Kumar Mukherjea was an authority on Indian classical music, particularly the Senia
Shahjahanpur
Gharana
(school) of Sarod
. He was also a mathematician.
. Justice Mukherjea was also a scholar of Indian philosophy, and had made significant contributions to Navya-Nyāya
literature. Kalyan thus grew up in a milieu that placed considerable significance on erudition and culture.
Justice Mukherjea's close friends included musicians like the sarod maestro Radhika Mohan Maitra
. Young Kalyan began training under Maitra in 1956. He also studied with the sitarist, vocalist and composer, Prof D T Joshi.
Mukherjea's musical education continued uninterrupted throughout his performing career, but there were periods during which he was not under the direct tutelage of a master (1962–1965 and 1967–1976). These years spent in relative isolation from the Indian music scene, Mukherjea believes, contributed as much to his growth as a musician as did his formal training. Mukherjea has had a unique experience, doubling as a mathematician
and an uncompromising classicist on the sarod
.
s in Delhi and Calcutta.
His research interests primarily concerned topology. He had to his credit authoritative publications in Fredholm manifolds and coincidence theory. In collaboration with his erstwhile research student Rajendra Bhatia, he had also contributed to matrix analysis. According to the American Mathematical Society
collaboration distance calculator, his Erdős number
is 4.
His work had spawned a significant body of further research, by his erstwhile students as well as colleagues and contemporaries. He had also mentored several significant contributors to the field, including Rajendra Bhatia, Basudeb Datta, Siddhartha Gadgil, Amritanshu Prasad, Mahan Mitra
, and Kingshook Biswas.
While at UCLA, Mukherjea served as an instructor of Hindustani instrumental music in the newly-formed ethnomusicology
department, and collaborated closely with Nazir Jairazbhoy
in the early days of the program. His students include Dr. Peter Manuel, Professor of Music at Hunter College
, CUNY, who has acknowledged his debt to Mukherjea in several publications.
Mukherjea performances have been limited. His 25-year span as a performing artist saw him play about fifty concerts in all. It was entirely by chance that he encountered Lyle Wachovsky of India Archive Music, New York, who gave his music a global audience by publishing a full-length CD of Ragas Shuddha Kalyan and Shukla Bilawal. Most of Mukherjea's concerts have been recorded, and if one manages to get past the often poor recording quality, he has much to offer to the connoisseur of Indian raga music. Additionally, from 1983 to 1990, Mukherjea was a regular broadcaster on All India Radio, Delhi.
Mukherjea's music is difficult to categorise under usual taxonomic classifications. While rooted in tradition, it does not rigidly adhere to convention. His approach values logic and aesthetic sensitivity above other considerations. A good example of this is his approach to interpreting the controversial Raga Shuddha Kalyan, which finds mention in an article by Deepak Raja on the issue.
continued for a number of years, but waned eventually as Kalyan's eyesight, already a matter of concern at the time of his stroke, began to deteriorate very rapidly into near-total visual impairment.
In the last phase of his life, Mukherjea led an active life for a person of his physical limitations. He was deeply involved in the community of visually impaired computer users, and had assisted several such individuals in setting up the "Audio Desktop" of Emacspeak
. Additionally, he continued to play an inspirational role in the lives of a number of young mathematicians.
On the musical front, other than providing occasional guidance to other disciples of Radhika Mohan Maitra's gharana (e.g. Sanjoy Bandopadhyay
, Prattyush Banerjee, Jon Barlow etc.), he nurtured a number of his own pupils, including Anirvan DuttaGupta and Arnab Chakrabarty
.
An All India Radio Recording (1984)
Senia
Senia may refer to:* Count of Senia, a title of Maltese nobility* Es Sénia, a commune in Algeria...
Shahjahanpur
Shahjahanpur
Shahjahanpur is a municipal board, town and district headquarters of Shahjahanpur District in Uttar Pradesh, India.-History:During the reign of Shahjahan, Mughal forces demolished the city of Kant...
Gharana
Gharana
In Hindustani music, a gharānā is a system of social organization linking musicians or dancers by lineage or apprenticeship, and by adherence to a particular musical style. A gharana also indicates a comprehensive musicological ideology. This ideology sometimes changes substantially from one...
(school) of Sarod
Sarod
The sarod is a stringed musical instrument, used mainly in Indian classical music. Along with the sitar, it is the most popular and prominent instrument in the classical music of Hindustan...
. He was also a mathematician.
Early life
Mukherjea was born in Calcutta in 1943. His father, A K Mukherjea, was a successful barrister who rose to become a judge of the Supreme Court of IndiaSupreme Court of India
The Supreme Court of India is the highest judicial forum and final court of appeal as established by Part V, Chapter IV of the Constitution of India...
. Justice Mukherjea was also a scholar of Indian philosophy, and had made significant contributions to Navya-Nyāya
Navya-Nyaya
The Navya-Nyāya or Neo-Logical darśana of Indian logic and Indian philosophy was founded in the 13th century CE by the philosopher Gangeśa Upādhyāya of Mithila. It was a development of the classical Nyāya darśana. Other influences on Navya-Nyāya were the work of earlier philosophers Vācaspati...
literature. Kalyan thus grew up in a milieu that placed considerable significance on erudition and culture.
Justice Mukherjea's close friends included musicians like the sarod maestro Radhika Mohan Maitra
Radhika Mohan Maitra
Radhika Mohan Maitra was an Indian sarod player. Maitra was considered an influential figure in 20th century sarod playing and received the title Sangeetacharya.-Early life and background:...
. Young Kalyan began training under Maitra in 1956. He also studied with the sitarist, vocalist and composer, Prof D T Joshi.
Mukherjea's musical education continued uninterrupted throughout his performing career, but there were periods during which he was not under the direct tutelage of a master (1962–1965 and 1967–1976). These years spent in relative isolation from the Indian music scene, Mukherjea believes, contributed as much to his growth as a musician as did his formal training. Mukherjea has had a unique experience, doubling as a mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
and an uncompromising classicist on the sarod
Sarod
The sarod is a stringed musical instrument, used mainly in Indian classical music. Along with the sitar, it is the most popular and prominent instrument in the classical music of Hindustan...
.
As a Mathematician
Mukherjea obtained his undergraduate degree from Cambridge University, followed by a doctorate in mathematics from Cornell. In 1968, he joined the mathematics faculty of UCLA. He remained at UCLA until 1976, when he returned to India to take up a professorship at the Indian Statistical InstituteIndian Statistical Institute
Indian Statistical Institute is a public research institute and university in Kolkata's northern outskirt of Baranagar, India founded by Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis in 1931...
s in Delhi and Calcutta.
His research interests primarily concerned topology. He had to his credit authoritative publications in Fredholm manifolds and coincidence theory. In collaboration with his erstwhile research student Rajendra Bhatia, he had also contributed to matrix analysis. According to the American Mathematical Society
American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, which it does with various publications and conferences as well as annual monetary awards and prizes to mathematicians.The society is one of the...
collaboration distance calculator, his Erdős number
Erdos number
The Erdős number describes the "collaborative distance" between a person and mathematician Paul Erdős, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers.The same principle has been proposed for other eminent persons in other fields.- Overview :...
is 4.
His work had spawned a significant body of further research, by his erstwhile students as well as colleagues and contemporaries. He had also mentored several significant contributors to the field, including Rajendra Bhatia, Basudeb Datta, Siddhartha Gadgil, Amritanshu Prasad, Mahan Mitra
Mahan Mitra
Mahan Mitra, also known as Mahan Maharaj and Swami Vidyanathananda, is an Indian mathematician and a recipient of the 2011 Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Mathematical Sciences..- Early education :...
, and Kingshook Biswas.
As a Musician
Mukherjea's contribution to music is considerable if unconventional. He has been recognised as a pedagogue, theorist and performer of merit. This recognition, however, has been sporadic in coming, although his own involvement with music remained fairly consistent across different stages of his life.While at UCLA, Mukherjea served as an instructor of Hindustani instrumental music in the newly-formed ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology is defined as "the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and global contexts."Coined by the musician Jaap Kunst from the Greek words ἔθνος ethnos and μουσική mousike , it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music...
department, and collaborated closely with Nazir Jairazbhoy
Nazir Jairazbhoy
Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy was a professor of folk and classical music of South Asia at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he was the founding chair of the Department of Ethnomusicology and Systematic Musicology. He was appointed professor of music at UCLA in 1975, and retired in 1994...
in the early days of the program. His students include Dr. Peter Manuel, Professor of Music at Hunter College
Hunter College
Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...
, CUNY, who has acknowledged his debt to Mukherjea in several publications.
Mukherjea performances have been limited. His 25-year span as a performing artist saw him play about fifty concerts in all. It was entirely by chance that he encountered Lyle Wachovsky of India Archive Music, New York, who gave his music a global audience by publishing a full-length CD of Ragas Shuddha Kalyan and Shukla Bilawal. Most of Mukherjea's concerts have been recorded, and if one manages to get past the often poor recording quality, he has much to offer to the connoisseur of Indian raga music. Additionally, from 1983 to 1990, Mukherjea was a regular broadcaster on All India Radio, Delhi.
Mukherjea's music is difficult to categorise under usual taxonomic classifications. While rooted in tradition, it does not rigidly adhere to convention. His approach values logic and aesthetic sensitivity above other considerations. A good example of this is his approach to interpreting the controversial Raga Shuddha Kalyan, which finds mention in an article by Deepak Raja on the issue.
Paralytic Stroke and Other Problems
In May 1995, Mukherjea's musical career came to a sudden end, as he suffered a paralytic stroke, and lost mobility of the left side of his body. Research in topologyTopology
Topology is a major area of mathematics concerned with properties that are preserved under continuous deformations of objects, such as deformations that involve stretching, but no tearing or gluing...
continued for a number of years, but waned eventually as Kalyan's eyesight, already a matter of concern at the time of his stroke, began to deteriorate very rapidly into near-total visual impairment.
In the last phase of his life, Mukherjea led an active life for a person of his physical limitations. He was deeply involved in the community of visually impaired computer users, and had assisted several such individuals in setting up the "Audio Desktop" of Emacspeak
Emacspeak
Emacspeak is a free computer application, a speech interface and an audio desktop employing Emacs, which is written in C, Emacs Lisp and Tcl and developed principally by T. V. Raman and first released May 1995; it is portable to all POSIX-compatible OSs...
. Additionally, he continued to play an inspirational role in the lives of a number of young mathematicians.
On the musical front, other than providing occasional guidance to other disciples of Radhika Mohan Maitra's gharana (e.g. Sanjoy Bandopadhyay
Sanjoy Bandopadhyay
Sanjoy Bandopadhyay is a Bengali Hindustani classical sitar player. He is primarily a disciple of Radhika Mohan Maitra and Bimalendu Mukherjee...
, Prattyush Banerjee, Jon Barlow etc.), he nurtured a number of his own pupils, including Anirvan DuttaGupta and Arnab Chakrabarty
Arnab Chakrabarty
Arnab Chakrabarty is a Hindustani classical musician and sarod player.-Early life and education:Arnab Chakrabarty grew up in Mumbai, where his father was a professor of chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology...
.
Death
Prof. Mukherjea died on 31 March 2010, after suffering a massive heart attack a few weeks before.Journal Articles: Mathematics
Books: Mathematics
1. Mukherjea, Kalyan:Differential Calculus In Normed Linear Spaces, American Mathematical Society, 2003 (ISBN 8185931437, Hardcover)Writings: Music
Radhika Mohan Maitra - His Life and TimesDiscography: Music
Raga Shuddha Kalyan, India Archive Music, 2003External links
- An Introduction by Abhik Majumdar
- An Autobiographical Article by Prof. Kalyan Mukherjea written as letter to the eminent musicologist Deepak Raja
- Deepak Raja:Raga Shuddha Kalyan: How and why it is changing
An All India Radio Recording (1984)
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