Rajan Mishra and Sajan Mishra, Padma Bhushan awardee, two brothers of Banaras gharana who are proud torch bearers of 300-year old ancestry of khayal singing. The Mishra brothers have been performing to audiences all over Indian and the world for many years, and have so far released over 20 music albums in genres ranging from classical Khayal gayaki, to semi-classical tappa and bhajans.

Awards, accolades and critical acclaim have come their way often, and in many forms. Notable among them are the Sangeet Natak Academy Award (President’s Award) in 1998, the Sanskrit Award (presented by the Prime Minister of India), Sangeet Nayak (from Pracheen Kala Kendra, Chandigarh), Sangeet Ratna (Allahabad), Sangeet Bhushan (Varanasi), the Kumar Gandharva Award (1996) and the Kashi Gaurav Award (Varanasi). They received honorary citizenship for the city of Baltimore in USA.

Here we chat with Rajan Mishra of Rajan-Sajan Mishra duo, about his music, aim and struggle.

Tell us about your childhood?

I spent my childhood in Banaras (Varanasi). I did my schooling there, then I did my post graduation from Banaras University and then we shifted to Delhi. Before shifting to Delhi we did many concerts and shows but the first which we did was at the Sankat Mochan Mandir festival in Banaras in 1968. It got a lot of media courage, from where we came to limelight and audience received us very well. In a way, we started our career from there.

We are residing in Delhi since 40 yrs and still we are Banarsi at heart as we still follow Banaras culture here in Delhi. The biggest achievement I feel is to be loved by every artist from the same field which is very rare to find. 

First international stage performance?

In 1978 we travelled to Sri Lanka, where they were celebrating May Day on 1st of May. There were about 10 lakh people for the event. It was a huge celebration and the then Prime Minister, Mr. Junius Richard Jayawardene of Sri Lanka was present at the celebration. It was our first experience outside India, and later we toured US and UK. In UK we preformed at the Royal Albert Hall. In US we performed at Kennedy Centre and Lincoln Center.

What qualities have you adopted from your gurus other than singing?

My gurus are huge influence on our lives. My grandfather Bade Ram Dasji, my father Pt. Hanuman Mishra and my uncle Pt Gopal Mishra are our gurus. We were groomed as musicians under them. They taught us to respect and taught us how to lead life with simplicity. They taught us that the music which is commercialized doesn’t give a sense of happiness, but when it is performed with aradhana you will feel happy and complete.

Does Padma Bhushan add to the responsibility as an artist?

Padma Bhushan is a recognition given by the government of India, which is received from the first citizen of India, honourable President himself. It gives a sense of satisfaction that country recognizes you and honours you. The government of India broke the protocol and gave both me and my brother the award on the same day.

For artists, the actual awards are the audience. Once you see them enjoy our music, feel our music and when they come and respectfully greet us and give their feedback, then we feel the responsibility and perform at the best level possible.

How have you evolved as a musician?

There is always way to modify. In our Gharana, pronunciation was not polished. They never thought on working on it, but we do care as we have given pronunciations importance primarily because the audience connects with it. We have worked on representation of raga as we think we should respect raga. When we present our ragas, we think of music as our deity.

One word that comes to your mind about your life?

My world is revolves around dedication; this holds to key success. Dedication should be there in humans while performing, while praying to God. Dedication always works.

What do you enjoy the most other than music?

We are very much interested in sports. In our younger days, we used to play cricket. I was captain of the college team and even my younger brother captained the team during his college days. When we are not performing, we usually switch on sports channels. We also keenly follow hockey, badminton and football.

Most cherished moment in your life?

In 1994, we performed in Maastricht, Holland to a packed house. The show was basically bifurcated into parts; part 1 and part 2. We had performed the first part of the show which was about one and a half long and there was pin drop silence after the performance; the audience didn’t acknowledge, didn’t clap for us. We went back to the green room very disappointed as we thought our performance was not up to the mark, but to our surprise a fan came to us and told us that they felt very divine and that there should be decorum. He added that they maintained silence as a mark of respect for our performance. It was a huge compliment for us.  

When we performed at Royal Albert Hall, London, not only were we performing at a prestigious venue with a huge stage, but it was being telecast live on BBC.

Your aim?

My aim is to pass on what I have learned from my gurus. For this purpose, we have gone one step ahead by opening Viraam Gurukul,  an institute at Dehradun where we teach under the traditional guru-shishya parampara. We are proud that we are blessed with such good students at our institute. My sons, Rajnish and Reitesh are also singing duets like us and now they are touring the US. This is a huge achievement for them and we as gurus are very proud of them.

Has the journey to be established a tough one?

Establishment as good singer is always difficult, whichever field you belong. But it is the dedication towards the work you do and with thesupport of your guru, you can succeed. But at the same time, you should be kind hearted and should not be bias and jealous about others. With these qualities, you will surely succeed in life and will be well-established, whatever may your field be.

We never use to get paid enough in the early days. There would be lot of problems like our contracts once disappeared from the office of Akashwani where we use to perform, but with confidence on ourselves, our guru and our music we reached this stage that we are acknowledged by the Government of India .  

Your favourite holiday destination?

My favourite holiday destination is Jim Corbet National park; we visit twice in a year.

What is fusion?

Fusion is part of life in India. As Indians, we do so many things like wear western cloths, eat western food, but I believe if it is positive we can be happy and satisfied. So there is nothing wrong in fusion, it is just that it we must be positive. Fusion is not invented or discovered recently, but it has been existing since ages. It is just that we are getting familiar with it. With today’s trend being globalization, fusion is an obvious product.

Your favourite musician?

I hear a lot of music, mostly Lataji, Kishore Kumar, Rafiji, Manna Deyji from Bollywood. From classical background, I like Pt Omkarnath Thakur, Bhimsenji, Pandit Jasraj, Ustad Amir Khansaab, Ustad Bade  Ghulam Aliji and Kishori Amonkar.