The Music Room: A Memoir »

NAMITA DEVIDAYAL was born in 1968 and graduated from Princeton University. A journalist with The Times of India, she lives in Mumbai.

When Namita is ten years old, her mother takes her to Kennedy Bridge, a seamy neighborhood in Bombay, home to hookers and dance girls. There, in a cramped one-room apartment lives Dhondutai, the last living disciple of two of the finest Indian classical singers of the twentieth century: the legendary Alladiya Khan and the great songbird Kesarbai Kerkar. Namita begins to learn singing from Dhondutai, at first reluctantly and then, as the years pass, with growing passion. Dhondutai sees in her a second Kesarbai, but does Namita have the dedication to give herself up completely to the discipline like her teacher? Or will there always be too many late nights and cigarettes? And where do love and marriage fit into all of this?

A bestseller in India, where it was a literary sensation, The Music Room is a deeply moving meditation on how traditions and life lessons are passed along generations, on the sacrifices made by women through the ages, and on a largely unknown, but vital aspect of Indian life and culture that will utterly fascinate American readers.

Publishers Weekly

Devidayal is a "reluctant ten-year-old" when she shows up for her first lesson in classical Indian singing, but the occasion marks the beginning of her musical lifetime, as chronicled in her new memoir. As a student at an Anglican school in Bombay, Devidayal is more at home speaking English and playing badminton than practicing the tanpura, an Indian stringed instrument. But as she progresses from one-note lessons to real ragas, she begins to realize that her mentor, the much-revered but never-quite-famous Dhondutai Kulkarni, offers life lessons as well as music lessons. Through the many stories Dhondutai relays to Devidayal (which range from factual to mythic), the reader is treated to a detailed history of Hindustani classical music and many intimate anecdotes regarding Dhondutai's own gurus, the legendary Bhurji Khan and Kesarbai Kerkar. Devidayal, who graduated from Princeton and now works as a journalist with the Times of India, was a gifted young singer, but lacked the passion to pursue the art professionally. This graceful memoir is a provocative illustration of music's unifying force in a religiously and socially stratified country. (Feb.)

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Prologue: Bhairavi 1

Pt. 1 Kennedy Bridge 5

Pt. 2 Shivaji Park 69

Pt. 3 The Khansahibs 123

Pt. 4 Kesarbai 191

Pt. 5 Kolhapur 275

Epilogue: Borivli 305