Pandit Durga Sahai

Durga Sahai lost his sight as a small child, and the honorific Surdas — after the blind sixteenth-century poet-singer — was attached to his name. He learned tabla from his father, Pandit Baldev Sahai, and made his career largely away from Benares, in Calcutta, where he worked as both soloist and accompanist.

The lineage notes compiled by Dr Frances Shepherd record the family belief that no tabla player before or since could play faster, and describe the energy that people felt in his hand. His lasting reputation, though, rests on accompaniment: he is remembered as unsurpassed in following a soloist or a Kathak dancer without being able to see them. He was the favoured accompanist of Ustad Inayat Khan, the sitar and surbahar player who was the father of Ustad Vilayat Khan and Ustad Imrat Khan — a connection the family regards as the measure of his standing, since it placed him alongside one of the most influential instrumentalists of the period.

The Sahai family account adds that he became a court musician in the state of Muktagachha, and that he played tabla before the deity at the Dakshineswar Kali temple every Tuesday and Saturday. His younger brother Lakshmi Sahai, himself a capable all-round musician, gave up his own career to travel with him and look after him. His recorded disciples are Syamalal, Benarasi Mishra and Natu Babu.

An accompanist's art at extreme speed: clarity and boldness combined with the sweetness the family line was known for, applied across vocal, instrumental and Kathak settings.