A tribute to Pt. Shivkumar

 

Pandit Shivkumar Sharma was a synonym of rare musical instrument ‘Santoor’. He not only used to play Santoor but also popularize it throughout the world and made it popular from bringing out it from ‘rare’ category . He gave music to several Bollywood movies including ‘Silsila’ and many others. But his popularity can be gauged by one incident during his performance in New Delhi’s famous Sirifort auditorium.

Although, he arrived for his performance in time but the programme was delayed due to some technical glitches. It took almost two hours to correct technical glitches but the audiences did not move from their seats and enjoyed his performance.

He started his first stage performance in 1955 in Mumbai. Although, he belongs to J&K but he spent his most of the life in Mumbai. He made string instrument santoor popular in Bollywood industry. Due to unique style of playing of the instrument and string, it is believed that santoor did not achieved that height that other classical Indian instruments could achieve. But whatever popularity Santoor received in the music world, a bigger contribution comes from Shivkumar Sharma. That is the reason that not only music world but all walks of life have paid rich tributes to the departing soul.