Pandit Anokhelal Mishra

Anokhelal Mishra was born in 1914 into a very poor family in Kashi (Banaras). He lost his parents while still young and was brought up by his grandmother. His talent for rhythm was noticed by Bhairav Prasad Mishra, who took him as a tabla student at about the age of five or six and trained him for some fifteen years. That line runs back through Bhairav Prasad's own teacher, known as Bhagat-ji, to Ram Sahai, the founder of the Banaras baaj; among Bhairav Prasad's other students were Maulvi Ram Mishra, Mahavir Bhatt, Mahadev Prasad Mishra and Nageshvar Prasad, and Anokhelal became the best known of them.

He was known for an almost punishing daily riyaaz, and for a modesty at odds with his reputation — contemporaries recalled a quiet man who praised younger players and said of himself that he still had much to learn.

He played both as a soloist and as an accompanist, working with musicians including Allauddin Khan, Vilayat Khan and Ali Akbar Khan, and accompanying singers and Kathak dancers. His recitals were carried on All India Radio, including its National Programme of Music, and reached listeners abroad through broadcasts such as Voice of America. The Rajan Parrikar Music Archive preserves a tabla solo in teentaal, one of the clearest surviving records of his playing. He was widely called Tabla Samrat, "emperor of tabla".

One surviving document of his solo playing is a teentaal recital recorded at a concert on 26 December 1957, with Jnan Prakash Ghosh on harmonium, before an audience that included Ahmed Jan Thirakwa, Habibuddin Khan, Maseet Khan and Karamatulla Khan; it was later issued as "Samrat". Samta Prasad, himself a Banaras master, said of him: "I am playing only one fourth of Pandit Anokhelal Mishra's style and they glorify my name."

He admired the fard playing of Bhagvati Sahai of the Ram Sahai family, and said he went to listen to him practise and tried to play as much like him as he could.

Among the musicians he trained were Mahapurush Mishra, who became Ali Akbar Khan's principal accompanist for nearly three decades; Chhote Lal Mishra, who later wrote on the playing techniques of the Banaras gharana; Chandra Nath Shastri; Ishwarlal Mishra, called Lallu; Radhakanta Nandi; Ramji Mishra; Sundar Lal Mishra and Chakkan Lal Mishra. His son Kashinath Mishra and grandson Sanjay Mishra also played.

Gangrene appeared in his left foot in 1956, and he died of it on 10 March 1958, aged about forty-four. Accounts of his early life differ in small details — some sources name Bhairav Sahay and Bhairon Maharaj as his teachers rather than the single name Bhairav Prasad Mishra — and those variations are recorded here rather than resolved.

Some of the clearest surviving recordings of his playing were not commercial releases at all. A teental solo lasting more than half an hour, with Khanna Banerjee on lahara, was recorded in Balaram Pathak's house on 11 September 1957, a few months before his death, by his own student Mahapurush Mishra; a second solo from 26 December 1957 survives in the same way. Both were kept privately for decades before being digitised from tape.

The Banaras baaj is an open, full-handed style descended in large part from the pakhawaj. What set Anokhelal apart within it was speed held together by clarity: he was called the jadugar, the wizard, of 'na dhin dhin na', the theka of teentaal, and of the phrase 'dhere dhere kite taka'.

The detail players still cite is that he could produce the 'na' of that theka at extreme speed with the first finger alone, so the syllables stayed separate where most playing turns into a blur — the na and tin ringing cleanly, the bayan resonant beneath. In the surviving teentaal solo the tempo climbs without the outline of the theka ever dissolving.

He was equally at ease in slow tempo, where the same care shows as space rather than speed; accounts of his accompaniment for dancers describe a hand that could turn instantly from that unhurried manner to the sharpest agility. That combination, rather than any single composition, is what later Banaras players measure themselves against.