Abstract: Anecdote is one of the principal forms in which history appears to us in the discourses of north Indian classical music.  The talk seeks to understand some of the uses of anecdotal narratives and suggest that they require close attention and analysis. The task it appears is not so much to sift fact from fiction, but more to understand the different functions of anecdotal narratives in the sphere of music.

About Speaker: Amlan Das Gupta is Professor of English and Director of the School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University. He has been working on creating an archive of North Indian classical music at the School for more than a decade now.