Kumar Gandharva’s reclusive musician son goes missing again

BHOPAL - Well-known Hindustani classical vocalist Mukul Shivputra - son of the legendary Kumar Gandharva - has gone missing again, an official said Wednesday, a day after he was found in a pathetic condition at a railway station near here.

Shivputra, who is known to be a recluse, was found in dirty clothes and with a long beard at the Hoshangabad railway station, 80 km from here, Tuesday and admitted to a private nursing home here.

‘He was put under observation at the nursing home but he slipped away sometime Tuesday midnight,’ an official of the state’s culture department told IANS.

Shivputra has a circle of close friends in Bhopal, mostly from the art and cultural field. But they too are perplexed at his disappearance.

Most of them feel he may have fled to some other city. Some also said Shivputra had never had a permanent abode.

‘He is a moody person. He likes to lead a reclusive life and has a habit of disappearing and then reappearing out of the blue,’ remarks one of Shivputra’s close friends. His son Bhuvnesh declined to comment on his father.

Last week, Shivputra was found begging outside a temple premises in the state capital but he went missing as soon as news about his ‘pitiable condition’ appeared in the media.

A native of Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh, Shivputra was born in 1956 and was trained from an early age by his father, the renowned classical vocalist Kumar Gandharva. Later he also learnt from K.G. Ginde and studied Carnatic music for a year with M.D. Ramanathan.

Besides khayal, Shivputra sings devotional and folk songs. He has many Sanskrit compositions to his credit and has experimented with setting Sanskrit lyrics to music.

After Shivputra disappeared last week, the state government attempted to find him.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said: ‘Mukul is a cultural gem of our state and he should be located at the earliest.’

Both the culture department and the public relations department had since been on a ‘hunting’ spree and sent employees to different temples and other places Shivputra frequented.

A team also went to Dewas, Nemawar and Jalgaon to find him. When information about his presence at Hoshangabad railway station reached the state capital Tuesday afternoon, senior administrative officials rushed there, brought him to Bhopal and got him admitted to a private nursing home for a checkup.

Official sources said it was not easy to identify him in dirty clothes and with a long beard.

‘We are all very concerned about him and are again trying at the individual as well as departmental level to locate him. The search is on again,’ Director Culture Sriram Tiwari told IANS.