A Rare Raga. An Enduring Legacy. An Evening Unfolding in Sound.
There are ragas one learns, ragas one performs, and, on rare occasions, ragas that become lifelong companions. Sanjhgiri belongs to the last category in the musical life of Pandit Sanjoy Bandopadhyay.
In 2008, during his second concert visit to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Pandit Sanjoy chose to present this rare and evocative raga, traditionally attributed to the extraordinary twelfth-century polymath Amir Khusro, the celebrated poet, musician and scholar. The choice emerged from a spontaneous conversation in the green room with his old friend, one of the most distinguished living legends of the tabla. When Sanjoy asked what he should play, his friend offered three possibilities—and chose Sanjhgiri. A moment of artistic camaraderie thus became the beginning of the musical journey preserved in this recording.
The raga had entered Sanjoy’s repertoire as a precious gift from his revered guru, Pandit Radhika Mohan Maitra. Over the years, Sanjoy returned to Sanjhgiri on numerous significant occasions and at important musical festivals. Yet repetition never meant reproduction. With each rendition, his intimate engagement with the raga revealed fresh colours, subtle inflections and new expressive possibilities. What began as a legacy received from his guru gradually became a deeply personal artistic territory—one in which reverence and discovery could coexist.
For Pandit Sanjoy, Sanjhgiri evokes the slow descent of evening across a range of hills. As daylight recedes, the landscape undergoes a succession of transformations. The hills shift through shades of fading gold, amber, violet and deepening blue, each colour carrying its own emotional resonance. Eventually, darkness gathers. Yet the arrival of night is not an end to the spectacle. Moonlight touches one slope; starlight illuminates another. Shadows deepen, distant contours emerge, and the landscape acquires an entirely different mystery.
This is the imaginative world that informs the present performance. Rather than illustrating a landscape, the sitar invites us to experience its unfolding through sound. The music moves through changing states of luminosity and shade, revealing how a raga can sustain a distinctive identity while continually renewing its expressive life. The evening does not merely pass; it breathes, transforms and lingers.
The tabla accompaniment brings to this encounter the presence of a formidable musical intelligence and an old friendship. Beyond the formal relationship between melody and rhythm lies the unspoken understanding that can develop between accomplished musicians over years of shared musical sensibility. Their dialogue gives the performance its particular immediacy, allowing structure and spontaneity to meet without disturbing the contemplative world of the raga.
Sanjhgiri @ MIT, Cambridge 2008 preserves more than a concert performance. It captures a meeting of musical lineages, a moment of artistic trust, and one musician’s continuing conversation with a rare raga inherited from his guru. It also offers a glimpse into the creative process of an artist for whom mastery is not the repetition of something already discovered, but the capacity to discover something new within what is already deeply known.
As the final colours of evening disappear into the night, the music leaves behind an impression that is difficult to define yet impossible to dismiss. Perhaps this is the enduring magic of Sanjhgiri: its ability to make darkness luminous, stillness expressive, and a fleeting musical moment feel timeless.
An evening on the hills. A raga of rare beauty. A musical journey that continues to unfold.
Three Movements of an Evening: The Musical Journey of Sanjhgiri
The present recording of Sanjhgiri unfolds across three distinct yet organically connected movements, each capturing a different moment in the gradual transformation of the evening landscape.
I. The Last Rays — Vilambit Alap (00:23:42)
A serene and unhurried exploration of the raga, immersed in the golden-red glow of the setting sun. As the last rays linger upon the hills, the alap reveals the essential contours of Sanjhgiri, allowing its melodic personality to emerge with meditative depth and unforced grace. Time seems suspended as daylight slowly withdraws.
II. The Gathering Dusk — Jod (00:10:09)
The evening begins to deepen. With the gradual emergence of rhythmic momentum, the Jod evokes a landscape in transition, where fading luminosity gives way to gathering shadows. The music acquires a quiet intensity, its movements reflecting the changing moods of the hills as twilight slowly descends.
III. The Evening Unfolds — Thaa-Duni Gat (00:17:28)
Night approaches, and the hills enter a new world of light and shadow. The Tha-Duni gat brings a further dimension to the musical narrative, as rhythmic articulation and melodic imagination illuminate the evening landscape. The departing sun has given way to the subtler radiance of moonlight and stars, revealing new colours and perspectives within the darkness.
Together, these three singles form a continuous artistic journey—from the last golden-red rays of daylight, through the introspective depths of dusk, to the mysterious beauty of the hills at night. Each may be experienced independently, yet together they reveal the larger imaginative vision behind Pandit Sanjoy Bandopadhyay’s rendering of Sanjhgiri.
Three stages of an evening. Three facets of a rare raga. One unfolding musical vision.
Sanjhgiri was a gift from Pt. Sanjoy’s guru Pt. Radhika Mohan Maitra that Panditjee rendered in many important festivals and occasions and successfully generate a unique love and mastery that gave the raga new colors in its every new renderings.
Pt. Sanjoy visualizes the raga as slow drawing evening on the hills, the changes in colors in the hills takes different moods but ultimately leads to dark but the different lights coming on the hills from the moon and the stars create different feels.
The present Sanjhgiri in the recording depicts one such evening.