Sahana Devi ( bn, সাহানা দেবী) (1897–1990) was an Indian singer, she was a widely listened to singer of

Rabindra Sangeet ''Rabindra Sangeet'' ( bn, রবীন্দ্র সঙ্গীত; ), also known as Tagore Songs, are songs from the Indian subcontinent written and composed by the Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore, winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize in Li ...

. She was the niece of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das.

Career

She was born into an illustrious Bengali Brahmo family and had distinguished array of men and women in her paternal and maternal sides. Her paternal grandfather Kali Narayan Gupta, was a zamindar who became a Brahmo samaj leader, social reformer and a songwriter. Sir, K G Gupta, one of the top ranking Indian ICS was her father's elder brother. Her father Dr. Pyare Mohan Gupta was a district civil surgeon. Atul Prasad Sen was her father's sister's son. Her mother Tarala Devi was the elder sister of 'Deshbandhu' Chittaranjan Das. Sahaha took her music lessons from her maternal aunt Amala Das, a pioneer Rabindra Sangeet exponent and the first Indian woman to record songs in HMV. She was among the few singers to learn directly from

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...

and Dinendranath Tagore. In 1922, she met Dilipkumar Roy in the Gaya session of the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

and was deeply influenced by his musical style, though she retained a distinct way of her own. Sick and deserted by her family, she was given refuge in 1927 by Tagore in his

Santiniketan Santiniketan is a neighbourhood of Bolpur town in the Bolpur subdivision of Birbhum district in West Bengal, India, approximately 152 km north of Kolkata. It was established by Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, and later expanded by his son ...

but she had to leave the place for her failing health. Sahana Devi was one of two singers allowed by Rabindranath Tagore to improvise his songs.

Personal life

Devi was the niece of Chittaranjan Das and a cousin of

Atulprasad Sen Atul Prasad Sen ( bn, অতুল প্রসাদ সেন; 20 October 1871 – 26 August 1934) was a Bengali composer, lyricist and singer, and also a lawyer, philanthropist, social worker, educationist and writer. Early life Atul Prasad ...

. In 1928, she joined the

Aurobindo Ashram The Sri Aurobindo Ashram is a spiritual community (ashram) located in Pondicherry, in the Indian territory of Puducherry. The ashram grew out of a small community of disciples who had gathered around Sri Aurobindo after he retired from ...

at Pondicherry where she lived until her death in 1990. Devi wrote an

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

in 1978 called 'Smritir Kheya' (Ferrying Down the memory stream)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Devi, Sahana Bengali singers 1897 births 1990 deaths