Pandit Bhairav Sahai

Bhairav Sahai belongs to the generation immediately after Pandit Ram Sahai, who shaped the Benares style of tabla in the early nineteenth century. Sources agree that he learned inside the Sahai household from the age of about five; they disagree on the exact family tie. The account compiled by Dr Frances Shepherd and published by the tabla player Shawn Mativetsky describes him as the son of Ram Sahai's brother Gauri Sahai, taken on as Ram Sahai's disciple and handed to his own father to complete the training when Ram Sahai became ill. The Sahai family's own website places him in the direct descent without stating the relationship. This archive records both readings rather than choosing between them.

He is remembered for a forceful, large-scale manner of playing and particularly for layakari — the art of setting rhythmic patterns against the underlying cycle at contrasting speeds. The family tradition preserves his boast that the only thing capable of tiring him would be accompanying dance, voice and an instrument at the same moment, each in a different taal.

Outside music he is described as a horseman and swordsman with a forthright temperament. After performing at the court of Nepal he is said to have asked the king not for money but for a horse, a sword and a gun, on the grounds that the journey home crossed dangerous mountain country. He later served as a musician at the court of Darbhanga in Bihar. His son, Pandit Baldev Sahai, became the teacher of the next generation of the family and of Pandit Kanthe Maharaj.

Frances Shepherd's account adds detail to both halves of that life. By eighteen he was already established, admired as a soloist and as an accompanist who could follow anything put in front of him. The Nepal journey came at the invitation of Jung Bahadur Rana, who asked him to stay on as a court musician; he declined, and was sent home instead with gifts — money, jewels, a horse and a sword — and with a colonel's uniform and the title to go with it.

His teaching went two ways. Inside the family it passed to his son Pandit Baldev Sahai, and through him to Kanthe Maharaj, Bikku Mishra, Bhagvati Sahai and Durga Sahai. Outside it, he taught Bhagwan Mishra, and that branch continued through Biru Mishra and Bansdeo Prasad to Lachchu Mishra — a line of Benares players descending from him without bearing the Sahai name.

Powerful, resonant playing in the Benares baj, with a reputation built on layakari and on sustained accompaniment across vocal, instrumental and dance settings.