The Story
OrganizerIn 1934, a musician named Pandit Motiram died in Hyderabad just hours before he was to be honoured as court musician of the Nizam at Chowmahalla Palace. His youngest son was four years old. That son grew up to become Pandit Jasraj, one of the towering Hindustani classical vocalists of the twentieth century and the pre-eminent voice of the Mewati gharana, and in 1972, out of his lifelong bond with the city where his father is buried, he founded a festival in his memory: the Pandit Motiram Pandit Maniram Sangeet Samaroh.
The festival honours two men, Jasraj's father, Sangeet Ratna Pandit Motiram, and his elder brother and guru, Sangeet Mahamahopadhyaya Pandit Maniram, under whom Jasraj learned his art and whose name he added to the festival after Maniram's death in 1986. It is held annually in Hyderabad and structured around a sacred date: it culminates each year on 30 November, the death anniversary of Pandit Motiram, and for decades Jasraj himself performed on that closing night. From its earliest editions the Samaroh was a stage of consequence, it was here, in 1972, that Amjad Ali Khan and Zakir Hussain were first introduced to Hyderabad audiences, and over the years it has been held at venues including Chowmahalla Palace, the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and, in recent years, the Centre for Cultural Resources and Training in Madhapur.
When Pandit Jasraj died in 2020, the festival did not end with him. Now organised by the Pandit Jasraj Cultural Foundation and carried forward by his family and disciples, among them his daughter Durga Jasraj and his nephew Rattan Mohan Sharma, it continues to draw leading artists across Hindustani vocal and instrumental music, Carnatic music and classical dance; the 52nd edition, in November 2024, featured performers such as Rekha Bhardwaj, Shobhana and Abhishek Raghuram. More than half a century after its founding, the Samaroh remains both a tribute to a musical lineage and a living platform for the tradition Jasraj served.
The Samaroh is significant as a half-century-old institution of Hindustani classical music, and as the principal living memorial to the Mewati gharana lineage of Pandit Motiram, Pandit Maniram and Pandit Jasraj. By anchoring itself to a sacred date and place, the death anniversary of Motiram in the city of his samadhi, it fuses personal homage with public art, sustaining both a family's musical legacy and the broader tradition. Historically it served as a launch platform for major artists, and it has long been one of Hyderabad's most important classical music events. That it has continued, and retained its stature, after the death of its founder, testifies to the depth of the institution he built and the community that now sustains it.
The festival's continuation after Pandit Jasraj's death matters as evidence that a great musician's legacy can outlive him as a living institution rather than a memory. It keeps the Mewati gharana and Jasraj's musical vision in active practice, gives Hyderabad a historic annual classical platform, and connects new generations of artists and listeners to a specific, storied lineage. For the Atlas, it is a significant node in mapping India's classical music and the role of family and gharana legacies in sustaining it.
