Imagine a temple not built of stone but of harmony and melody.
When Pt Dr Nagaraj Rao Havaldar speaks of a raga, he describes it with the precision of an architect and the devotion of a priest. He sees the aroha and avaroha not as mere scales, but as the rising spires and foundational depths of a living structure — a sanctuary that houses the form whose beauty and potential is for loyal rasikas of art.
For Nagaraj, a raga is never an abstract entity; it is a ksetra (a soil of merit). To hear him sing is to witness a musician who maps the internal spirit onto the external world. He relates the thunderous, rain-soaked gravity of Miya Malhar to the boulder-strewn majesty of Hampi.
When he invokes Malhar, the imagery is visceral: the sky over the Tungabhadra turns a bruised purple, and the air grows heavy with the scent of wet earth and ancient stone. His voice carries the weight of the monsoon — not as a gentle shower, but as a torrential downpour that crashes against the monoliths of the past. The deep, resonant andolan of notes mirror the shifting shadows of the Vittala Temple, where the music is both a plea for the rain and the rain itself. In this space, the listener’s internal friction is washed away by a demonic grace (Virupaksha, the presiding deity of Hampi), leaving behind the cool, quiet scent of a world reborn.
If Malhar is the storm that breaks the drought, raag Bhairav is the light that survives the night. Nagaraj anchors this raga in the eternal ghats of Kasi.
Being an early morning raga, visually it is like the sound of the first sun hitting the Ganges — a steady, meditative awakening. Through the lens of the Kirana lineage, Nagaraj approaches the raga’s characteristics as a moment of profound spiritual transparency. It is the music of a disciplined seeker standing at the edge of the water, ready to offer the debris of his ego. To listen to his Bhairav is to undergo a ritual cleansing. The sharp edges of daily trauma are smoothed out; his music would absorb the heavy undigested burdens of the mind trapped in its own whirlpool. A good listener will leave feeling lighter — as if the sound has dissolved all the worries, stress, and the grime of the world and leaving the spirit crystal and pure.
The grand-disciple’s blessing
Yet, for Nagaraj, the most profound temple he ever entered was the proximity of his legendary grand guru, Pt. Bhimsen Joshi. As a musician who spent decades in that illustrious lineage — training under Bhimsen ji’s prime disciple, Pt. Madhava Gudi — Havaldar wasn’t just learning notes; he was rewiring his internal alchemy.
Lineage in Indian classical music is often reduced to a family tree, but in the presence of a master, it is a transmission of fire. Nagaraj’s own music carries the resonance of this fire — a fact that was famously validated by the legend himself. As early as in 1991, when Nagaraj presented his progress, Bhimsen Joshi affectionately recognised him as his ‘Grand Disciple’.
What’s the big fuss? It’s just two words one might think.
The two words aren’t just words of praise of Nagaraj’s music on that day; it meant Bhimsen ji enjoyed and relished his music so much so that he approved the younger musician worthy to carry the ‘mark’ of the Kirana Gharana. In the oral lineage, praise is frugal; and the highest praise is when the student earns the ‘seal’. Such measured recognition of excellence no certification conferred by an Ivy League can match.
Alchemy of ‘the presence’
Thanks to Nagaraj’s book, The Voice of the People, today we can revisit Bhimsen Joshi’s rare life moments. While a performance of the pandit is known for his thunderous breath and lightning-fast taans, on one occasion he suddenly stopped mid-phrase.
Nagaraj recounts an evening where the bravado of the legend gave way to a startling vulnerability, “Joshi ji hit a single, steady note and then drifted into a profound silence”. Being in proximity on that day, Nagaraj realised that the music wasn’t being performed; the performer had surrendered to the raga. The music was no longer coming from the man; it was happening to him. He wasn’t performing for the audience; he was being devoured by the raga.
“It’s rare to find incidents like the master’s decision to be silent, or to witness true surrender. In that silence, I felt a movement inside that towered from the feet to the head of Gomateshwara statue,” Nagaraj confesses.
If God is an experience, then silence is that moment that best interprets his form.
Today is a world obsessed with “more” (more speed, more volume, more sensation, more noise). We think art is something to be learnt for performance, but through Nagaraj Havaldar’s eyes, we learn how art can teach values without being preachy. It can teach humility. At least once in a while to put a stress test on our ego, we need to stop making excuses, make the uncomfortable effort to displace ourselves to sit in a concert hall to let our mind dissolve and reset.