(This article was originally published on 12 January 2016. On Swami Vivekananda’s death anniversary, The Quint is republishing this piece from its archives, on 4 July 2022.)
Swami Vivekananda, best known as the monk who modernised Hinduism and took Vedanta to the West, was also a very proficient musician. Born Narendranath Datta, it was while growing up in his ancestral house in north Calcutta that his love of and prowess for music came to the fore.
While his father Vishwanath Datta, a trained classical musician, taught him the rudiments of Dhrupad, one of the oldest schools of Hindustani classical music, mother Bhuvaneshwari Devi familiarised Vivekananda with traditional devotional music and plays dedicated to Krishna.
While very young he was tutored by Ahmad Khan and Beni Gupta, two well-known musicians of his time. He studied and practised vocal as well as instrumental music for about five years under them and true to his name, Vivekananda, which means ‘the one who exults in a clear conscience and in discernment’, quickly grasped the intricacies of Indian classical music and instruments that often take a lifetime to master.