Hari Babu Kaushik

Hari Babu Kaushik, 76, a vocalist and a Sarangi artist, has a wife and five sons in their family. He belongs to the Mushti Margiya Samprada, established by Maha Prabhu Vallabahacharya. Hari Babu Kaushik is a wonderful Haveli sangeet performer. He was the Ras Leela acharya in 1967. Everything he knows has learned from his father. In 1968,  he was the only Sarangi artist in the entire Braj region. He belongs to the Mathura Gharana and highlights that they sing ‘Taj bibi and Tansen Ke Padd.’ He has been a teacher to several artists belonging to the different religious systems, or as he puts it, from almost every Sampradaya. He believes in “meetha khaana aur meetha bolna,” implying, “Eat sweet, Talk sweet.” For Sarangi, Swami Kanhaiya Ji from Mukhrai village was his teacher, and later in life, he learned from Ghulam Jhafar from Kanpur. He believes that Music is a kind of devotion through which one can directly connect with the almighty.  “Swar is God, Taal is God”, he shares. From a very young age, he was exposed to a musical environment in his house, and thus picked up the Sarangi and Haveli Sangeet and never stopped learning. Hari Babu Kaushik learned Haveli Sangeet from his father. He has attained all the knowledge by following the Guru-Shishya, Gurukul system. To date, Hari Babu has presented all the Leelas at AIR. He is enrolled with AIR India for 40 years now. He has performed all across the world but never left the originality of his music. He thoroughly enjoys teaching music now, which he does free of cost. He attains immense joy in the same. He has been working hard towards achieving mastery in his craft and pursues it with tremendous passion. Despite all his struggles, he strives to keep developing his craft and dreams to educate his audience about this artform free of charge. Someday in the future, he sees himself succeed through the art that he loves so much.

• Braj
• Uttar Pradesh