When Arpita Das, Sraboni Mondal and Indrani Banerjee heard that Girija Devi would once again return to the ITC Sangeet Research Academy as one of its gurus to impart training in Hindustani classical music, they were overjoyed. "We couldn’t believe our luck. We’ll get an opportunity to learn the nuances (of Hindustani classical music) at the knees of this God-gifted singer," they said.

Girija Devi, now in her seventies, is back in the academy, popularly known as SRA, after a gap of nearly 12 years. For a while, she would be staying in her own house in south Kolkata as her bungalow in the SRA’s sprawling complex in Tollygunj is currently undergoing renovation.

If you visit her place any morning, you would find Devi seated cross-legged on a mattress on the floor, singing. As if taking a cue from a particular nuance of the voice, her pupils, seated patiently facing her, heads bent, look up. They start strumming the tanpura, spawning unaccountable syllabic chords, seeking a fusion with the voice. The girls are with their revered "Guru ma" from dawn to dusk, all the time trying to enrich themselves with the finer points of music.

This is part of SRA’s efforts to revive the Guru-shishya parampara mode of learning Hindustani classical vocal music in the now defunct gurukul environment.

Broadly speaking, the Guru-shishya parampara is the very soul of the oral tradition of India, and embodies the living and learning relationship between the master and pupil. At the core of the system is the concept that the shishya learns through perseverance, personal sacrifice and unflinching loyalty. Says Girija Devi: "The system is still so relevant. You cannot learn the finer points of music by listening to a recorded music for 45 minutes.

In 1977, ITC chairman Ajit Narain Haksar rode hard on the idea of serving the gurukul, for, he was an admirer of Hindustani classical music. Besides, he was goaded by the need to give his company a loveable social profile. His dream was fleshed out by Vijay Kichlu, the dynamic director of SRA. Since, then, it has fulfilled three basic objectives: a) Creation of an effective training system; b) to rationalise traditional data with the help of modern research methods and technology and ; c) promotion and propagation of music.

The important objective is important as the SRA has successfully created a wide variety of platforms all over the country and abroad which attempt to take quality music systematically to all areas and sections of the population.

After serving the academy for 20 years, Kichlu parted ways, building his own foundation to further the cause of Hindustani classical music. The present director, equally dynamic, is carrying on with the task of preserving the heritage of the fast disappearing gurus of Hindustani classical music. Says Amit Kumar Mukherjee, the SRA director" "I think it’s a novel idea to learn the methods. The academy has been a tremendous success in this regard. We have produced musicians over the years who have made mark in India and abroad such as Ajoy Chakraborty, Rashid Khan, Shubhra Guha and so on."

The academy is housed in six spacious bungalows of which the principal one belonged to Tipu Sultan 200 years ago. Among the luminaries in the world of Hindustani classical music who readily identified themselves with the SRA cause were Nissar Hussain Khan, Hirabai Barodekar, Ishtiaq Hussain Khan, Nivrittibua Sarnaik, Girija Devi and Latafat Hussain Khan and A. Kannan and wife Malabika.