After Sandhya Mukherjee, tabla maestro Anindya Chatterjee declines Padma offer
India Today
Pandit Anindya Chatterjee, eminent tabla player, has declined the offer of Padma Sri honour. He is the second person from Bengal's music industry, after singing legend Sandhya Mukherjee, who refused Padma honour.
Eminent tabla player Pandit Anindya Chatterjee has become the second Bengali music artist, after singing legend Sandhya Mukherje, to refuse the Padma honour. The eminent percussionist, who has done `jugal bandis’ (duets) with classical maestros like Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, has refused to accept the Padma Sri honour offered by the central government.
Pandit Anindya Chatterjee on Wednesday said hat he had received a phone call from Delhi on Tuesday seeking his consent to accepting the honour.
“However I politely declined. I said thank you but I am not ready to receive Padma Shri at this phase of my career. I have passed that phase,” Chatterjee who received the Sangeet Natak Akademi award in 2002 said.
Chatterjee said he would have accepted the honour with gratitude had it been conferred on him 10 years back. “Many of my contemporaries and juniors were given Padma Shri years ago. Anyway, I said with all humbleness, that I am sorry, but I cannot accept it (award) now.”
Singing legend Sandhya Mukherjee similarly turned down the offer of the Padma Shri Award offered to her by the Centre on Tuesday evening.
Speakiing to India Today TV, Soumi Sengupta, the venerated artiste’s daughter, said that her mother declined the honour because, "To confer a Padma Shri to a legend like her at the age of 90 is extremely demeaning".
Soumi Sengupta categorically stated that Mukherjee’s decision to turn down the Padma Shri was not politically motivated.
