Pandit Neralkar: End of a musical phase

Aurangabad, March 28:

A musical phase has come to an end with the sad demise of the renowned musician Pandit Nathrao Neralkar. His demise has caused severe losses to the musical arena in the Marathwada region. He died after a brief illness on Sunday morning. He was 86 years old. Around ten days back, he fell at his house at Aurangabad, and his condition deteriorated since then. He was not even able to speak for the past two days. He suffered a heart attack at around 1 pm on Sunday, informed his music director son Jayant Neralkar. Pandit Neralkar is survived by daughter Hema Upasani Neralkar, sons Jayant Neralkar, Anant Neralkar, son-in-law, daughters-in-law and grandchildren. The last rites were performed on him on Sunday night. He started the traditional Guru-Shishya system of imparting musical knowledge in Aurangabad and has several disciples in the city.

He learned music from Dr Annasaheb Gunjkar at Nanded. He established ‘Anant Sangeet Mahavidyalaya’ in 1956 and continued the work of teaching music till his last breath. He joined Saraswati Bhuvan College as a music teacher in 1973 and retired as the head of the department in 1995. He was also appointed as Guru at Sangeet Research Academy at Kolkotta. He received several state and national level awards including the prestigious Sangeet Natak Academy award in 2015. He organized several music festivals in the Marathwada region for propagating music.

He had organized a music festival in the city in 1980 with the help of Namdhari Panth, in which prominent musicians including Zakir Hussain, Hariprasad Chaurasiya, Shivkumar Sharma, Singh Brothers, Birju Maharaj, Amjad Ali Khan, Kishan Maharaj, Vilayat Hussain Khan, Rajan Sajan Mishra and others were invited. He had very cordial relations with Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Bhobha Gurtu, Hirabai Badodekar, Pandit Kumar Gandharva, Pandit Jitendra Abhishekhi and others. He always encouraged the budding singers and musicians.