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Odisha ReviewSeptember - October - 2014

Gita Govinda was his strong point. And, somellifluous was his tone of voice when he renderedthe verses that he left the audience mesmerized.Indeed, it was Pundit Raghunath Panigrahi whopromoted and popularized twelfth century poetJayadeva’s eternal love poetry across the globe.

With Raghunath’s death a year ago,Indian classical music has certainly lost a doyen.But the world of traditional Sanskrit music toohas lost a great enthusiast.Gita Govinda singingwill not be the same again after Raghunath’s death.The music maestro had celebrated his ownbirthday and the birth anniversary of his wife, thelegendary Odissi dancer Sanjukta Panigrahi justa couple of days before the demise.Sanjuktahad pre-deceased him in 1997, in cancer.

Raghunath Panigrahi was born in Gunupura small town in the backward south Odisha districtof Koraput on the banks of river Vamsadhara. IfRaghunath was a prodigy, he inherited music fromhis classical vocalist father Nilamani Panigrahy.The unique style of singing the Gita Govinda camefrom none but his father. The numerous renditionsof the poem in tune with the traditions of the LordJagannath Temple in Puri earned him a uniquedistinction. He was possibly the only vocalist whocould sing all 24 verses of the Gita Govinda.Raghunath was a multi-faceted personality:

Raghunath Panigrahy :The Genius

Bhaskar Parichha

Classical vocalist, composer and Odissimusicologist. His career spanning six decades isa chronicle of events that are spectacular andamazing.

The maestro’s genius sparkled not inOdisha, but in distant Chennai in the late 1950s.Itwas in the recording studios of Prasad and Vauhiniat Kodambakkam in Chennai that Panigrahi gota break as a singer on par with the then greatslike Ghantasala and P.B.Srinivas. And it was againat Kalakshetra in Chennai’s Adyar, that he methis Odissi and Bharatanatyam dancer wife,Sanjukta Misra, with whom he was to team up inthe 1960s to take Odissi dance and music togreater lengths.

So, the short stint of less than five yearsin Chennai that proved to be the game changerfor this 21 year old lad from Odisha. Lovers ofold Tamil film music still remember Panigrahi’ssong ‘Naan Thedum Podhu’ and ‘Kan KaanumMinnaldhaano’ in the 1959 Sivaji Ganesan-Pandari Bai starrer Aval Yaar directed by K.J.Mahadevan and music by S.Rajeshwara Rao. Thefilm sank without a trace, but Panigrahi’s songsare now seeing a revival thanks to YouTube. Eventoday, his songs shimmer in the memory of Tamilmusic lovers.Panigrahi’s soothing voice was ideallysuited for romantic songs. The slight Hindustani

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Odisha Review September - October - 2014

touch which he gave to his songs only added totheir appeal to the South Indian ear. 

He was a one film wonder in Tamil, buthe sang four or five songs for Telugu films. In the1956 award winning L.V.Prasad productionIlavelpu, starring A. Nageswarara Rao and AnjaliDevi, he sang a solo Yenadu Kanaledu Ee VintaSundarini. With P.Suseela and P.Leela he sang‘Challani Raja O Chandamama’ a big hit in thosedays.  In the 1959 Telugu musical hit, Jayabheri,he sang ‘Maadi Saradadevi Mandirame’ withGhantasala and P.B.Srinivas. He also played asmall role in the film. ‘Ilavelpu’ was directed by D.Yoganand. The story is based on thesuccessful Tamil film, Ethirpaaraathathu, itself abig hit and was remade in  Hindi  as  Sharada(1957), starring Meena Kumari and Raj Kapoor.

Panigrahi had good rapport with someof the finest music directors of those days likePandyala Nageswara Rao, S.Rajeswara Rao andSusarla Dakshinamurti, the music directors ofJayabheri, Aval Yaar and Ilavelpu respectively.Raghunath even sang for Kannada films.Raghunath Panigrahy would have gone far if hestayed on in Chennai but destiny had differentplans.

The brief stint of about five years inMadras was cut short by his marriage to SanjuktaMisra in 1960. After years of struggle andincessant travel across India, the Raghunath-Sanjukta Panigrahi duo made Odissi dance andmusic nationally acceptable as a classical art formon par with Bharatanatyam. This was before thearrival of Indrani Rahman and Sonal Mansinghwho took Odissi overseas. The Panigrahis usedto come back to Chennai later to perform at theMusic Academy. The wife-husband duo, like a

couple of other artiste pairs, had devoted theirlives completely to dance and music. So inclusivewas the devotion that they never put their feet up.

Back home, Raghunath composed musicand sang for several Odia films; but Odissi musicwas his foremost preoccupation. From thebeginning of 1970 and until the 1990s theSanjukta-Raghunath twosome traveled acrosscontinents for the cause of Odissi .After the deathof Sanjukta, Raghunath was also associated withBengaluru’s ‘Nrityagram’ and gave music for manyof its productions.

On his own, Raghunath Panigrahi becamea great exponent of Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda,which got him a Padma Shri only in 2010- abelated honor for a great master. But he was thefirst Odia singer to be honored by the Frenchgovernment for his ‘Gita Govinda’ compositionin 1978. Raghunath Panigrahy has been conferredupon few other outstanding awards including theprestigious Jayadev Samman instituted by thegovernment Odisha.

The soft-spoken and ever smiling singerwas a man of determination when it came to takingbold decisions in life. It was a very tough life forthe couple in the initial days and they had problemstackling survival issues for quite a few years. Buthe refused to crack under pressure and continuedto pursue the ‘great dream’ together with his betterhalf. Sanjukta and Raghunath, great couple andwonderful beings, were simple and down-to-earth. Nothing else mattered to them except musicand dance. Devotion par excellence!

Bhaskar Parichha, Chief Editor, Durmukha,Bhubaneswar.