Kalyan Mukherjea

Kalyan Kumar Mukherjea (1943–2010) was an authority on Indian classical music, particularly the Senia Shahjahanpur Gharana (school) of Sarod. He was also a mathematician.

Early life

Mukherjea was born in Calcutta in 1943. His father, A K Mukherjea, was a barrister who rose to become a judge of the Supreme Court of India.^[1] Justice Mukherjea was also a scholar of Indian philosophy, and had made significant contributions to Navya-Nyāya literature.^[2] 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, D T Joshi.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

As a mathematician

Mukherjea obtained his undergraduate degree from

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. Additionally, from 1983 to 1990, Mukherjea was a regular broadcaster on All India Radio, Delhi.^{[citation needed]}

Mukherjea's music is rooted in tradition but 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.^[12]

Death

Mukherjea died on 31 March 2010, after suffering a heart attack a few weeks before.^[13]

Publications

Journal articles: mathematics

Bhatia, Rajendra; Mukherjea, Kalyan K (1994), "Variation of the Unitary Part of a Matrix", SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications, 15 (3): 1007–14,

Mukherjea, Kalyan K; Sankaran, Parameswaran (1996), "Invariant points of maps between Grassmannians" (PDF), Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, 124 (2): 649–53,

Radhika Mohan Maitra – His Life and Times

Discography: music

Raga Shuddha Kalyan, India Archive Music, 2003

Legacy

In 2010, The National Law School of India University named the Best Speaker trophy at the National Law School Debate, South Asia's largest Asians Parliamentary debate, after him.

References