Pannalal Ghosh Biography In English Life Story -1911-1960

• Pandit Pannalal, also known as Amal Jyoti Ghosh, was an Indian flautist and composer.
• He was a disciple of Alauddin Khan, and is credited with popularizing the flute as a musical instrument in Hindustani classical music and being the “pioneer of the Indian classical flute”.

Pannalal Ghosh Biography In English

Birth Details –

Place – Barisal, Bengal, India

Date of Birth – 24 July 1911

Marital Status: Married

Nationality – Indian

Family –

Father- Akshay Kumar Ghosh

Brother- Nikhil Ghosh

Wife- Parul Ghosh

Daughter – Shanti-Sudha

Teachers – Alauddin Khan, Ustad Khushi Mohammad Khan, Girija Shankar Chakraborty

Early Life –

• Pannalal Ghosh was born on 24 July 1911 in Barisal, Bengal Presidency, British India. She was named Amal Jyoti Ghosh with the surname Pannalal.
• His father, Akshay Kumar Ghosh, was a sitarist. Ghosh received his early musical training from his father, playing the sitar.
• It is believed that two inauthentic incidents in his childhood influenced Ghosh to take up playing the flute. As a child he picked up a small flute commonly played by shepherds, and based on sitar lessons from his father, he would try to play musical patterns on the flute.
• The family’s ancestral home was on the banks of the Kirtankhola river. At the age of nine, while swimming in the river one day, Ghosh found a long bamboo stick that was half flute and half walking stick. The flute part of the stick was longer than the traditional flute and Ghosh started practicing on it.
• He was married to Parul Ghosh in 1924 when she was only nine years old and he was thirteen. She was the younger sister of Ghosh’s friend Anil Biswas who later became a famous musician.
• In Kolkata in the early 1930s, Pannalal received musical training for two years under the traditional Ganda Bandhan from his first guru, the renowned harmonium player and renowned guru of classical music, Ustad Khushi Mohammad Khan.
• After the tragic demise of Khushi Mohammad Khan, Pannalal studied under Pandit. Girija Shankar Chakraborty, an eminent musician and musicologist. The most profound influence on his music came from the lessons arranged under the famous Ustad Alauddin Khan Sahib in 1947.
• Panna Lal Ghosh’s daughter Shanti-Sudha was married to flute player Devendra Murdeshwar, who was her father’s disciple. His son Anand Murdeshwar, grandson of Panna Lal, also made a name for himself as a flute player but died at a very young age. Ghosh’s younger brother, Nikhil Ghosh, was a renowned tabla player and Padma Bhushan awardee.

Career–

• When he was working with New Theaters Limited in Calcutta, he assisted in musical production. In 1940 he came to Bombay to pursue his musical career.
• Sneh Bandhan (1940) was his first film as an independent musician. Popular songs from the film were “Aabru Ke Kaman Mein” and “Sneh Bandhan Mein Bandhe Hue”, sung by Khan Mastan and Bibbo.
• Pannalal Ghosh jointly composed the background score for “Andhiyan” with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Pandit Ravi Shankar in 1952. He was the first to introduce the seven-hole flute.

Notable Students

• Devendra Murdeshwar
• V.G. Karnad
• Nityanand Haldipur

Other Information –

• Date of death – 20 April 1960
• Place – New Delhi, India

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