Monsoon Khayal | Raag Megh | Pandits Rajan & Sajan | Benares Gharana | Music of India

#darbarfestival | “We belong to a 300-year-old legacy of the Benaras gharana. Our music has to have the intrinsic qualities of this ancient city.” (Rajan & Sajan Mishra) Learn more about the music: Rajan & Sajan Mishra live, breathe, and sing the essence of Varanasi. They grew up there, receiving initial training from their great-uncle Bade Ramdas Mishra, a vocalist, and from their father Hanuman Prasad Mishra and uncle Gopal Prasad Mishra, both eminent sarangi players. The family’s music represents a deeply devotional tradition stretching back three centuries, and the brothers made their debut as part of a haazri [musical ritual] at the famous Sankat Mochan Temple. “Surrender and bhakti is the essence of Benaras from where we city has become crowded and the traffic, chaotic, yet there is sukoon [peace]. I still hear the strains of my father’s sarangi when I step into this lane. We often walk along the ghats singing to the Ganga or sipping chai from a kulhad. The river has bee