English Literature – Articles ☆ 🎶 USTAD HARJINDER PAL SINGH MATHARU ☆ Shri Jagat Singh Bisht ☆

The Master of Santoor — From the Lanes of Ranjhi to the Concert Halls of the World 🌍

There are some friendships that belong to a particular period of our lives.

And then there are friendships that seem to have forgotten the passage of time.

My friendship with Harjinder Pal Singh Matharu belongs to the latter kind.

Even today, whenever I hear the gentle, silvery notes of the santoor, I am transported back to the days of our childhood in Ranjhi, a suburb on the outskirts of Jabalpur—our beloved Sanskardhani, the “Cultural Capital” of Madhya Pradesh, a name bestowed upon the city by Acharya Vinoba Bhave.

Harjinder was my schoolmate, my neighbour and, in many ways, a member of my extended family.

We were young, carefree and blessed with the extraordinary wealth of having very little to worry about.

And we walked.

Oh, how we walked! 🚶‍♂️🚶‍♂️

We would set out on what can only be described as marathon walks, covering miles and miles without any particular destination. There was no Google Maps, no fitness tracker and certainly no thought of counting steps. We simply walked, talked, laughed and wandered.

And after every such expedition, Harjinder would make the same grand announcement:

“I have broken all my previous and future records!” 😂

I am not sure what those records were, or who was keeping them. But the declaration was invariably made with the confidence of an Olympic champion.

Those were the days of innocent mischief, endless laughter and small pleasures that now appear disproportionately precious.

We played pranks on each other. We shared doughnuts, cream rolls and bananas. And I spent so much time at the Matharu household that I never felt like a guest there.

I felt at home.

🏏 THE CRICKET GROUND AT HOME

Some of my fondest memories are of the cricket matches we played inside their house compound.

There was no proper cricket pitch, naturally. We had a tennis ball, a bat, a chair for stumps and the walls of the house as boundaries.

And, wonderfully, Harjinder’s father and his brothers joined us.

It was cricket in its purest form—before television commentators, sponsorships, technology and third umpires had managed to complicate the simple business of hitting a ball.

The chair stood bravely as the stumps.

The walls suffered heroically as the boundaries.

And we considered ourselves international cricketers. 🏏😄

Looking back, I realise that these were not merely games. They were little fragments of a shared childhood, quietly stored somewhere in the heart, waiting for old friends to bring them alive again.

🎵 AND THEN, THERE WAS MUSIC

Harjinder’s journey, however, was destined to take him far beyond the familiar lanes of Ranjhi.

Born in Jabalpur in 1953, he developed an interest in music at an early age. At fourteen, his father, Sant Mela Singh Matharu, sent him to learn tabla from Bhai Labh Singh Ji of the Punjab gharana. He later learnt the pakhawaj style of tabla from Ustad Nihal Singh Ji.

Alongside music, he continued his academic studies and earned a Bachelor of Science degree.

But destiny had something much larger in store.

Recognising his musical potential, Satguru Jagjit Singh Ji, the spiritual head of the Namdhari Sikhs, took the young Harjinder to Bombay and placed him under the tutelage of the legendary Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, the maestro who transformed the santoor into one of the most celebrated instruments of Indian classical music.

That meeting changed the course of Harjinder’s life.

Under the rigorous guidance of his Guru, he immersed himself in the demanding discipline of the santoor.

The instrument itself is mesmerising—a trapezoid-shaped instrument carrying around a hundred strings, played with light wooden mallets. In the hands of a master, those strings seem to cease being strings. They become voice, prayer, meditation and poetry.

And Harjinder learnt to make them speak.

🎼 A GURU, A DISCIPLE AND A TRADITION

His first public performance came in 1986 at the prestigious Pt. Vishnu Digambar Paluskar Jayanti Samaroh in New Delhi.

Thereafter came scholarships, festivals, concerts, lecture-demonstrations and educational programmes. He travelled extensively with SPICMACAY, taking Indian classical music to schools and colleges across Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab and Maharashtra.

He performed at distinguished music festivals and venues in India and abroad, including the Darbar concerts in the United Kingdom, the Solstice Festival in Leeds and the Masters of Indian Classical Music concerts at Trafo Budapest.

At the Darbar Festival in 2007, his solo recital received tremendous appreciation and culminated in a standing ovation. The performance was subsequently televised on Sky Arts.

In 2013, he returned to the festival to perform Raag Patdeep, accompanied by tabla maestro Yogesh Samsi.

The little boy from Ranjhi had travelled a very long way.

🌏 FROM RANJHI TO THE WORLD

Today, I feel a special sense of pride whenever I see or hear Harjinder performing at prestigious halls across the world.

For others, he is an accomplished santoor player—a senior disciple of Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, a graded artist of All India Radio, a respected performer and teacher, and an exponent of the Guru–Shishya tradition.

For me, however, he is still the boy with whom I walked those endless miles.

The friend who proudly announced that he had broken all his previous—and future—records.

The companion with whom I shared cream rolls and bananas.

The boy with whom I played tennis-ball cricket in a family compound, with a chair pretending to be a set of stumps.

Perhaps that is the strange magic of friendship.

The world may see the artist.

The heart continues to see the friend.

❤️ A FRIENDSHIP THAT TIME COULD NOT AGE

I remember staying with Harjinder at the Namdhari Dharamshala in Matunga, Mumbai. He even accompanied me when I went for my job interview at the State Bank of India.

And, through him, I had the extraordinary privilege of meeting his Guru, Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma Ji.

I could never have imagined, in those youthful days, that the friend walking beside me in Ranjhi would one day introduce me to a musical legend—and that his own name would eventually become part of the glorious story of the santoor.

Yet, perhaps, that is how life unfolds.

We begin with small steps, unaware of the roads waiting ahead.

🎶 THE MUSIC CONTINUES

What touches me most about Harjinder today is not merely his international recognition.

It is the joy he derives from teaching.

Now settled at Sri Bhaini Sahib, the headquarters of the Namdhari Sikhs, he devotes himself to teaching and mentoring young musicians at the Sri Satguru Pratap Singh Ji Music Academy.

There is something deeply beautiful about this.

A musician receives a tradition from his Guru.

He nurtures it through years of sadhana.

And then, instead of keeping it to himself, he passes it on to another generation.

That is how music survives.

That is how culture survives.

That is how the Guru–Shishya Parampara remains alive.

The musical legacy of Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma thus continues to flow through Harjinder’s students, including Leeds-based Eesher Singh, and through many young aspirants who have had the good fortune of learning from him.

The river that began flowing from his Guru now finds new channels.

🌿 THE SANTOOR AS PRAYER

Whenever I am free, I love listening to Harjinder playing the ragas on his santoor.

There is an elegance in his playing that is difficult to describe.

Perhaps because the santoor, in his hands, is not merely a musical instrument.

It becomes a medium of contemplation.

Its hundred strings can create a cascade of sound, yet within that abundance there is serenity.

And when that music flows into Gurbani Kirtan, alongside his work in Hindustani classical music, the instrument seems to acquire another dimension altogether.

Music becomes devotion.

Performance becomes sadhana.

And art becomes a pathway to the spiritual.

🙏 MY FRIEND, MY PRIDE

Harjinder has travelled a very long distance—from the lanes of Ranjhi to the world’s great concert platforms.

But strangely, whenever we speak, we seem to return effortlessly to those school days.

We talk as if we were still sitting together in the classroom.

Perhaps that is the privilege of an old friendship.

Years disappear.

Grey hair becomes irrelevant.

Achievements become incidental.

And for a little while, two old boys meet again.

One of them happens to be a celebrated santoor maestro.

The other happens to be his old friend.

😊

I feel immense pride when I see Harjinder performing before audiences around the globe.

But alongside that pride there is something softer—a deep affection for the boy I knew, the friend who walked those endless miles with me, the family whose home felt like my own, and the companion who has remained unchanged in the one place where it truly matters: the heart.

🌸 A WISH FROM THE HEART

My dear Harjinder,

You have spent a lifetime in the service of music.

May the music continue to flow through you.

May your santoor continue to enchant audiences, soothe hearts and carry the fragrance of Indian classical music and spirituality to generations yet unborn.

May the Guru’s blessings always remain upon you.

And may you be blessed with robust health, inner peace, abundant happiness and a long, fulfilling and worthy life—a life in which you continue to teach, perform, inspire and pass on the sacred tradition you received from your Guru.

As you have often done with your music, may you continue to turn strings into sound, sound into music, music into emotion—and emotion into something that touches the soul.

🎶🙏❤️

And whenever the santoor plays, somewhere in its shimmering notes, I shall perhaps hear an echo of those long walks in Ranjhi.

And I shall smile.

Because somewhere, my childhood friend is still walking beside me.

“I have broken all my previous and future records!” 😄

Some friendships, after all, do not merely survive the years.

They become music.

🎵 With love, affection and immense pride for my dear childhood friend, Ustad Harjinder Pal Singh Matharu. ❤️