Pandit Manohar Chimote
( 1929 – 2012 )

Pandit Manohar Chimote was a prominent Samvadini player. It will be not be an exaggeration to say that it was Pandit Manohar Chimote who laid the foundation of solo harmonium - Samvadini playing in the field of Hindustani Classical Music. He made it his life mission to elevate harmonium – an instrument of Western import – to a level of full fledged of solo instrument on par with the sitar, the sarod. the flute and shehnai. Having Indianised harmonium, he renamed it as SAMVADINI in early seventies.

Born on 27th March 1929 in a mine owner’s family in Nagpur, young Manohar had an up bringing in an aristocratic environment with all conceivable comforts and luxuries of that time like a sprawling haveli, retinue of servants and horse buggi. However, his father late shri Vasudeo also had a religious bent of mind as a result of which the Chimote residence became a centre of musical religious discourses like bhajans and kirtans which drew both the devotees and the musicians alike. In this contrasting environment of aristocratic comforts and luxuries on the one hand and musical religious discourses on the other hand, it is the latter which influenced the young Manohar most and laid for him a path of musical destiny which was to mould him into what he came to be regarded for the rest of his life as a Samvadini maestro Pandit Manohar Chimote.

Young Manohar had a passion for harmonium right from his childhood and used to do his riaz day in and out and also give accompaniment to visiting vocal artistes in Nagpur. However, it was an accidental visit of Pandit Bhishmadev Vedi to Nagpur in 1946 that provided a golden opportunity to young Manohar in pursuit of his sangeet sadhana. During his brief stay in Nagpur for 4-5 months, Vediji taught him some basics of harmonium playing like its techniques, paltas and general information. However these basics were of such profound nature that they subsequently turned out to be an inexhaustible mine of innovations and improvisations for the young Manohar and greatly helped in laying the foundation for solo harmonium playing. Pandit Manohar Chimote till he breathed his last never forgot to acknowledge his gratitude to Vediji for these basics of harmonium playing which he taught him.

Having heard that his guru Vediji is somewhere in Mumbai busy organizing Sur Singar conference in 1950, young Manohar rushed to Mumbai and met Vediji. This time Vediji asked him to go to his gurubandhu of Kunwarshyam gharana eminent vocalist Gunigandharva Pandit Laxmanprasad Jaipurwale (1915 -1977) for musical training and thus began the second most important phase in pursuit of his sangeet sadhana. From Pandit Laxmanprasad ji, he learnt the nuances of gayaki and the rich repertoire of bandishes of the Kunwarshyam gharana.. He also used to accompany Pandit. Laxmanprasadji on harmonium during vocal recitals.

These were the formative years for young Manohar Chimote. Having no money, no contacts and no shelter, the life in Mumbai was , indeed, struggling one and at times frustrating one. But the musical journey continued uninterruptedly . He soon became the most sought after harmonium accompanist and had the honour of providing accompaniment to leading stalwarts of the day like like Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Nazakat Ali and Salamat Ali. Simultaneously he also had a frequent interactions with Ustad Amir Khan whose gayaki had a very deep impact on him and to a discerning listener its imprints were visible in his Samvadini as well as vocal recital. Pandit Manohar Chimote had a stint with the Film Industry in early fifties. With Naushad Ali during recording of Baiju Bawara, with Hemant Kumar during Nagin, with R. C Boral during Chaitnya Mahaprabhu, The other prominent music directors with whom he had close interactions were Jaydevji, Vasant Desai , Kalyanji ( Of Kalyanji- Anandji fame) and Laxmikant ( Laxmikant – Pyarelal fame) . Having watched Pandit Chimote’s Samvadini vadan on Mumbai Door Darshan in 1975, Shri Raj Kapur held his Samvadini program at his residence which was well attended by musicians and music lovers.

However, having realized that these activities of accompaniment to vocalists and being a musician in film industry no matter how much rewarding are in a way obstacle to pursuit of his main objective in his life i.e. development of harmonium as solo instrument, Pandit Manohar Chimote soon disengaged from these peripheral activities and focused soly of his sadhana.

Pandit Manohar Chimote was a versatile genius well versed in the performing, theoretical and historical aspects of Indian music. He was not only a prominent Samvadini player, but also an excellent vocalist, hard tasking guru, serious thinker and researcher, original composure and an impromptu performer. He was equally at ease in both classical and semi classical genres like thumris, dadra and folk dhunes. His lec –dem programs on music in general and Samvadini in particular were a great source of enlightenment to a student of music. His exposition of finer nuances of music like the shrutis, the swars and the emotions (bhav) behind them, the interpretation of raags and their renderings (peshkari) was unique and at times even unorthodox. His handling of komal rishabh in Marwa or komal gandhar in Pilu and Abhogi, or shuddh gandhar in Bhoop was a treat for a connoisseur of music. Similarly his demonstration various kriyas (sound modulations) like gamaks, khatkas, murkis, choot, ghasit and girav on Samvadini and also the demonstration of the gayaki ang was heard with rapt attention by music lovers and well appreciated.

Pandit Manohar Chimote was a prolific composer of bandish in khyal, thumri and bhajans formats. A list if reproduced here will be too long. So to mention briefly, they were in Tilakshyam. Yaman. Bridavani Sarang, Puriya Kalyan. Puriya Dhanashri, Din ki Puriya. Durga, Nand. Desh, Mishra Pilu. Gurjari Todi, Shobahavri, Bairadi, Patdeep, Madhuvanti. Jog, Jog Tilang . Shuddh Kalyan, Ajali Kalyan, Padma kalian, Khamaj. Similarly, he had a vast collection of bandishes from Kunwarshyam, Laxmaprasad Jaipurwale, Mahadevprasad Maiharwale and Lalan Piya.

Similarly, in Samvadini, he had innumerable compositions to his credit. In addition, he had some rare gats from his guru Pandit. Bhishmadev Vedi ji and legendary Bhaiyya Ganpatroa of Gwalior. Pandit Chimote was regularly invited by various music circles, individual patrons and music academies all over India for Samvadini recitals, lec-dems, conferences , interviews and workshops. He was thrice featured in Samvadini -Sitar jugalbandhi with Ustad Shahid Parvez In Pune, Mumbai and Nagpur, Similarly in Samvadini- Flute jugalbandhi withj Pandit Ronu Mazumbar in Mumbai. In earlier times, it was with Late Pandit Siddharth Parsvekar on violin. During his life time, Pandit Manohar Chimote was felicitated with various honours and awards the most important being Maharashtra Gaurav Purashkar in 1998. He was featured for interviews and performances on various occasions on Door Darshan as well other channels, His Samvadini recital recordings were brought out periodically by MOVAC, HMV, Arulkar and Samvadini Foundation.

Although born In Nagpur, Pandit Chimote had made Mumbai his karma bhoomi for the six decades of this life. He used to divide his time between Virar where he used to stay and Goregaon where he used to run his music academy named Samvadini Sangeetalaya at Goregaon (East) Here he used to teach both vocal music and samvadini to students in guru shishya parampara , As a guru he was very generous , open and patient in his teaching methods. He never held back anything, and never discriminated between two students. Similarly his home in Virar was always open for students and for that matter even for unknown music lover. There was no fuss about taking prior appointment in meeting him. He loved and blessed all his disciples alike and always used to say they were his real relatives. He was born for music and died for music. Music was always on his mind , heart and lips, He never did anything other than music in his whole life. He had certain unusual traits. Like he never listened to his recordings after he performed. When I asked why, he used to “ mere liye yah purana ho chukka hai. Agli bar kuch naya sochege,”. This shows that his musical journey was like a constantly flowing river, always moving head, chartering its own path, exploring something new on the way , never looking back and halting.