Legendary vocalist Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, who mesmerized music lovers with his extraordinary presentation of Hindustani classical music, passed away at Sahyadri hospital in Pune today morning after a prolonged illness.

He was 89. A recipient of Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award, Joshi had been put on life support system since past one month. The most-celebrated exponent of ‘Kirana gharana’ his guru was Sawai Gandharva, in whose memory he had started the popular gandharva festival. Born on February 4, 1922 at Gadag in Dharwad district of Karnataka, Joshi got his first break for a live performance at the age of 19, during the 60th birthday celebrations of his guru Sawai Gandharva. His first album was released by HMW, when he was 22 years old.

Besides classical music, Panditji lent is voice as a “dhrupad” singer for a Bengali film based on the life of Tansen and later was a playback singer for Marathi film “Gulacha Ganapati”, produced and directed by celebrated Marathi humorist “Pu La” Deshpande. He had also rendered his voice in Hindi movies like “Basant Bahar” and “Bhairavi”.

But it was his ‘Abhang Vani’ and ‘Bhakti Sangeet’ that gained him popularity more. How can we forget his ‘Majhe Maher Pandhari’ and Ramya hi Swargahun Lanka’ ? Besides Bharat ratna in 2008, he was also honoured with Padmashri, Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan in addition to Sangeet Natak academy award and Tansen Puraskar. He leaves behind three sons and a daughter. He will be cremated at Vaikunth, Pune around 3 pm today.