There was a surprise waiting to ambush me in the crowded labyrinths created by book stalls put up for the annual Kannada literary jamboree in Bangalore recently. The elderly Ramakanth Joshi of Dharwad's Manohara Grantamala, a renowned publishing house in Karnataka, pulled me aside, took out a few folded sheets of paper from his cotton sling-bag, placed them in my hands and said: "You'll like this. I translated it into Kannada from the Marathi just yesterday."
Unable to contain my curiosity, I asked him what it was. He said it was an unpublished obituary written for Bhimasena Joshi, by his eldest son Raghavendra Bhimasena Joshi, born to his first wife Sunanda, who was little known compared to Vatsala, his second wife, with whom he had lived in Maharastra since their marriage in 1951. Both Sunanda and Vatsala had pre-deceased their legendary husband. Sunanda, who had also lived in Pune, had passed away in 1991 and Vatsala in 2005. I recalled Gangubai Hangal telling me in November 2008 that Sunanda was the woman who had stood solidly behind Bhimasena Joshi in his early and most trying years. Sunanda's marriage to the singer had taken place in 1943 and he had four children from her - Raghavendra, Usha, Sumangala and Ananda. Vatsala bore him three children - Jayanta, Shubhada and Srinivasa.
Ramakanth Joshi is a cousin of Bhimsen Joshi and his father, the Kannada playwright G B Joshi, had, in 1961, published a candid biographical essay of the singer by his father Gururaja Joshi. It has now been reprinted as a slim volume after the singer's death. So, when he gave me the obituary I instantly knew that there would be something special and intimate in it. I had read a gossip magazine describe Sunanda and her children as the 'abandoned family' of the singer. 'Gururaja Joshi had also married twice. This heightened my curiosity in the narrative on hand. But in the very first read it was clear that Raghavendra Joshi had written it with utmost restraint, respect and literary flourish. It had no taint of casualness or entrenched bitterness or accusation whatsoever, but a meditative intensity comparable only to the 'abhangs' of his singer-father. There was an old-worldly devotion to the figure of the father. It was also essentially a monologue of a reflecting son at a deeply painful bend of life. There were interesting and profound questions with a fleeting rapidity in his mind, but they were also mostly reconciled questions. They didn't beg an answer. Raghavendra Joshi must be past 60 himself. In short, there was only acceptance and no arrogance of a pardon, delivered by a son to a father who was there, but never really there.
Let me present some excerpts in my twice removed translation. In the beginning, he speaks about the physical state of his father in his final months: