Dilip Kumar Roy

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Dilip Kumar Roy ( Bengali : দিলীপকুমার রায় Dilīpkumār Rāẏ ; born January 22, 1897 in Krishnanagar , Bengal ; † January 6, 1980 in Bombay , Maharashtra ) was an Indian musician , musicologist , singer and writer .

Professional life

Dilip Kumar Roy was born to Dwijendralal Ray . His family was wealthy. His father wrote national freedom songs and bhajans that made him the idol of the young freedom fighters of Bengal around the turn of the century. He lost his mother at the age of 6. At the age of 11, a private tutor was hired for the boy who taught him English, mathematics, history and geography. In addition to his native Bengali , he learned Sanskrit in a nearby school . He received his first music lessons from his father. Even in his later years he loved performing songs with texts from his father. At the age of 16 he lost his father and from then on lived with his wealthy grandfather in Kolkata . In 1918 he got his BA with Honors in Mathematics and went to Cambridge . Under the influence of Romain Rolland and Rabindranath Thakur , the young Dilip decided in 1920 not to take the Indian Civil Service exam and to pursue a career as a professional musician. He got to know Georges Duhamel , Hermann Hesse and Bertrand Russell .

In 1922 Roy returned to India. He had learned to speak French fluently in Europe, but only rudimentary German and Italian. In Germany he had both lessons in the European method of voice training and violin lessons from the singer Jukelius. However, he did not want to know anything about training as an opera singer, which is why his teacher Jukelius sighed every time in this context, " It's a shame, sir! "

At the invitation of Romain Rolland, Roy, as a young musicologist, gave a lecture on the structure and development of raga music at a meeting of the International Society for Peace and Freedom in Lugano. The article was published in the Kolkata quarterly Rupam magazine.

After 1922 he practiced classical music in India under the guidance of Abdul Karim Khan , Faiyaz Khan , Bhatkhande and others. Until 1927 he traveled all over India and thus came into close contact with the entire musical world. In 1927 Roy traveled to Europe and gave lectures on Indian classical music .

His interpretations of songs by the composers Dwijendralal Roy, Atulprasad Sen , Kazi Nazrul Islam , Himangshu Kumar Dutta and Nishikanta were responsible for their popularity throughout the country. He recorded more than 100 songs.

In 1965 he was honored with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Ratna for his contributions to music .

Religious life

Development to a yogi

As a child, Roy was initially full of religious skepticism. First doubts about this attitude arose through contact with his older cousin Nirmalendu, who was an admirer of Ramakrishna . At his suggestion he read the book "Kathamrita", which records the words of Ramakrishna and visited the author of this book, Sri Ma. He was deeply impressed by his demeanor. In his uncle, a doctor, he met the first person who devoted himself entirely to the pursuit of the eternal ( nitya ) in his free time .

In 1923 he met in Lucknow Krishna Prem , whose real name is Ronald Nixon, who impressed him deeply. He was amazed at the brilliance with which he defended the cause of Krishna against the intellectual hostility of his colleagues at the university. He was impressed by his sincerity and ambition to meet God face to face ( Ishvarsakshatkar ). A friendship developed that was of great help to him for over four decades. Roy wavered between a life as an artist and his spiritual yearning. He was afraid of a sadhana that seems to consist of serious, solemn loneliness, austerity full of privation, and bleak discipline. Krishnaprem made Dilip aware of Aurobindo's new interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita . Gradually he realized that a yogi's path need not necessarily be gray and lonely. On January 24, 1924, he was given the rare privilege of having a long conversation with Aurobindo. He was deeply impressed by his radiant personality and the aura of peace that surrounded him. But he also found that his purely intellectual search for Integral Yoga is insufficient. He traveled around India collecting songs from Hindu mystics . In 1927 he traveled to Europe for concerts and lectures. At these events he met the prima donna Emma Calvé in Nice , who enthusiastically tells him about her meeting with Swami Vivekananda in America and how his presence caused her life to take a completely different direction. By another coincidence, he met old friends who prevented him from continuing to record recordings in America. Instead, he met Roy Romain Rolland , who had given a lecture on Aurobindo in Tokyo and called him the prophet of future humanity. He then canceled his onward journey to the USA and returned to India. But only after another conversation in Lucknow with a friend of Krishnaprem and a long night of tears and prayers did the miracle happen for him and he unconditionally surrendered to Sri Aurobindo's yoga. On November 22, 1928, he arrived in Pondicherry .

At the Sri Aurobindo Ashram

Roy, like every aspirant in yoga, had his own personal difficulties in completely trusting his guru and following his advice. Again and again he tried his own way - such as B. strict meditation, strict asceticism and the like to get (more) quickly to the "goal" and again and again his guru had to "straighten" him up after such failures and make it clear to him that his yoga is not about titanic effort, but about devotion goes to the divine. And that, according to his nature, loving devotion ( bhakti ) and action ( karma ) are the two main drives. Therefore, Sri Aurobindo made it clear to him, he would get the best and quickest results if he continued with his poetry and music.

Since his guru had already withdrawn from the public eye in 1926, Roy wrote him more than two thousand letters over the two decades that he stayed at the Ashram . To these partly personal, partly yoga and world affairs questions and opinions, he receives at least 1000 letters from his guru, some of which are more than 12 pages long, and which were later published in part. In a letter dated December 26, 1931 to Dilip, published in Letters on Yoga Volume 2, Sri Aurobindo wrote:

"I would like - and my mother too - to express a word of appreciation for your music yesterday. Your Mahakali song was wonderful - full of subtle nuances and great power. Mother came up enthusiastically and said it was filled with life, Energy and movement; one could feel the universal forces exalting themselves in this way. Verily, you have spread your wings and rose into a vast ethereal space. "

Sri Aurobindo's letters to DK Roy from 1928–1950 were published in four volumes under the title Sri Aurobindo to Dilip .

After Sri Aurobindo's death

In 1953 he undertook a world tour on behalf of the Indian government accompanied by his student Indira Devi, on which he gave lectures on Indian culture and performed classical music while Indira Devi danced. After their return they both founded the Hari Krishna Mandir in Pune as a center for Bhakti Yoga, the pursuit of God on the path of loving devotion. Together they also wrote the double autobiography Pilgrims of the Stars , which tells of formative human encounters and spiritual influences, but also of crises and breakthroughs on the yoga path.

Works in German

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Roy, Dilip Kumar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian musician, singer and writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 22, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Krishnanagar , Bengal
DATE OF DEATH January 6, 1980
Place of death Bombay