Bhaskar Parichha
Few hours before India’s melody queen Lata Mangeshkar died, Odisha lost a great musician. An exponent of Odissi classical music, Pandit Hota was a great guru, vocalist, musicologist, and composer. He was also a proponent of Hindustani classical music.
Pandit Hota’s primary research on Odissi classical music in the 1960s was groundbreaking in uncovering the historical roots, its distinct ragas, talas, and lakshanas of the music which still cries for classical status. He fought to preserve the authenticity and distinctiveness of the form through his vocal performance, teaching, scholarship, and advocacy.
A Top Grade artist of Doordarshan and All India Radio, he exemplified the ashtanga-pradhan gayaki style of the Gwalior Gharana.Pandit Hota was a chief disciple of Padmashree Pt. Balwant Rai Bhatt (Bhav Rang) and Pandit Pt. Omkarnath Thakur (Pranav Rang). Puri-born Pandit Hota started learning music from his mother Smt. Dandimani Devi and father Sri Gopinath Hota who was skilled in Odissi music and Mardala as practiced in the Jaga-Akhadas of Puri and the Jagannath Temple. The basics he learned from his parents helped him later on in pursuing a career as a vocalist.
He continued training in Odissi music under Guru Nrusinghanath Khuntia.Pandit Hota attended the College of Music and Fine Arts at Banaras Hindu University. For his Doctor of Music (Sangeet Pravin) degree, he was awarded the Pandit Mirashi Buwa Puraskar. Pandit Hota holds Madhyama Purna in Tabla and Visharad in Pakhawaj.
He also served as principal and senior faculty of Hindustani vocal music at Utkal Sangeet Mahavidyalaya.Pandit Hota has been teaching music in the gurukula tradition since 1963. He is the founder and chief guru of Swar Rang, an institution of Hindustani Classical and Udra Paddhatiya Sangita.
To aid teaching and preservation, he has authored numerous books notating and discussing the practice, compositions, theory, and historical aspects of both forms of music. Many of the books are used as syllabus work across Odisha.
From 2007 to 2016, Pandit Hota organized the annual Tridhara National Music Conference to spread knowledge of Udra Paddhatiya Sangita alongside the two other forms of Indian Classical Music.[2] In 2020, Pandit Hota established the Sri Jagannath Institute of Udra Padhhatiya Sangeet for research and training in Udra Paddhatiya Sangita (Odissi music).
A composer whose works bear the pen name Swararanga, an aficionado of musical history and hands-on knowledge of the tradition of Udrapaddhatiya Sangeet, Hota dedicated his energies towards propagating awareness of the form.
Pandit Hota belonged to a generation for whom sadhana came before everything else.He was truly a sadhaka.