The demise of Pandit Umesh Chandra Kar has filled my heart with immense pain. Pandit ji is a very famous name in the history of Tabla of Odisha. He is probably not known to many people in India because he is from Odisha. This is not due to limitations of other states, it is because of the limitations of Odisha’s musical environment; odisa’s political scene was unable to recognize his art and artistic talents. Panditji could definitely have been recommended for the Padma award or any other national award, if not for Odisha’s political scene. If he hailed from any other states of India, his name would have been nominated for Padma award and would have been given a chance to present his art in every major program held at the government level in India. The music world of Orissa has not learned to promote anything other than Odissi music and Odissi dance and appreciate any artist or their art. It is not that artists are not being prepared in Odisha, every year hundreds of students pass out from Utkal Sangeet Mahavidyalaya and Utkal University of Culture, but where do all these artists go? There is very little appreciation of art here so where do these art students go? What do they do? There is no trace of them in the field of art.
Today again a great personality who created many disciples in Odisha music history disappeared into the sky, not much known to the outside, even within india. One of my disciples went to him just a few days ago. When he said that he is learning Dhrupad, Pandit ji said that this Dhrupad music is the root of all music, I am very happy you are learning it. Then Pandit ji said to the student,
“I have played my tabla with so many great personalities, I’m requesting you tell all this to the government so that they can give way to my art.” When that student came and told me this, I was very distressed. You can guess from this how much pain and suffering he was in, in his last stage of life.
Pandit Ji belongs to a strong musical family, his father Pandit Khetramohan Kar was a well-known tabla player and many artists of India used to visit his house in Puri. Even after belonging to such a strong musical family, his sorrow and pain was immense as he was born in Odisha. This experience of my 12 years living outside Odisha to learn music says that if he had lived in cities like Kolkata, Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, Punjab etc he might not have had to face this pain and suffering. Great artistes like Vidushi Sunanda Patnaik had moved to Kolkata because of such indicative musical atmosphere of Orissa.
I heartily request all the music gurus, music critics, music lovers and politicians of Odisha to designate a road in his name to keep Panditji’s memory alive and place Pandit Umesh Chandra Kar statue in that road. This cannot complete the irreparable loss in classical music, but if this is done, then Pandit ji’s soul can definitely find peace, I believe.
Mukunda Dev Sahoo
Dhrupad exponent, (Disciple of Padma Shri Gundecha Brothers) Poet, Writter & Composer
Mukund Dev 