I don't want to break away, I just want space to breathe, says flautist Ritik Chaurasia

Hindustan Times

2 days ago

MUMBAI: Before he ever played a note, Ritik Chaurasia had already inherited a sound, not just a surname. It was a legacy carried in every bamboo joint and note, hung gently on a breath. In Ritik's world, silence carries memory. And melody, an expectation. His lullabies weren't nursery rhymes, they were ragas, says flautist Rakesh Chaurasia of his son Ritik (right) being born into Pt Hariprasad Chaurasia's legacy. (Photo by Satish Bate/ Hindustan Times) (Hindustan Times)
The grandson of Pt Hariprasad Chaurasia—who lifted the humble bansuri from pastoral anonymity to the grandest concert stages of the world—and the son of the virtuoso Rakesh Chaurasia, 25-year-old Ritik lives at the confluence of memory and music. But for a long time, he wondered if it would ever become his own music, his own memory.
Across the room where Ritik practises each morning, on a mantle stands a relic with quiet authority—the very first flute Chaurasia brought with him to Bombay in 1959. Its wood worn with time, it still hums with dreams. 'It watches me,' Ritik half-jests. 'Some days it comforts me, while on others it reminds me to breathe slower. And some days it intimidates me, reminding me of the mountain of a musician in whose footsteps I must follow.'
'People don't just listen to me—they listen for echoes. Of guruji. Of papa. Of a sound that shaped a generation,' he says. 'But, while I am a Chaurasia, I am also Ritik—a 25-year-old still finding his phrasing.'
And therein lies the paradox: the burden of legacy isn't always felt in performance halls—it's felt in the quiet of riyaaz, in the hush before the first note, in the impossibly long shadow of two legends.
Raga-tuned childhood
'He was born into breath,' Rakesh Chaurasia, says, with a soft chuckle. 'There was not one moment when he chose the flute—it had already chosen him.'
Ritik's earliest memories aren't of toys or cartoons—they're of early morning alaaps, of the soft hum of the tanpura coming from a closed room, of his grandfather's eyes closing just before the first note. 'His lullabies weren't nursery rhymes,' says Rakesh. 'They were ragas. The flute was and is omniscient in our household.'
No surprise then that music wasn't taught to him—it seeped in, 'like monsoon rain through cracks in an old window'. There was no pressure. Just presence. The bansuri rested on tables, leaned against walls, breathed through the house. And somewhere, Ritik began to breathe with it.
His maternal grandfather Harsh Vardhan—a revered flute-maker—once crafted a tiny bansuri for Ritik's five-year-old hands. 'He held it all wrong,' Rakesh laughs. 'But he blew into it. And the sound came. That was all we needed.'
Still, Rakesh held back from becoming his teacher too soon. 'You can't rush music. It's like waiting for fruit to ripen.'
During school holidays in Delhi, Ritik's first real lessons came from his maternal grandfather. 'He was patient,' Ritik remembers. 'By the time I was in Grade V, I could play Raga Bhoop. I'd play it for relatives like a party trick.'
Even then, the burden wasn't far behind. 'Everyone smiled, but they listened with that look,' he recalls. 'The look that said, 'Let's see if he's like his father or grandfather.''
Rakesh remembers hoping Ritik would take to the bansuri, though he never pushed. 'Incidentally, we got a tabla teacher for my younger son Pratik when he showed interest—but the moment lessons began, he lost all desire,' he points out, recalling how he waited. He saw and heard of Ritik playing bhajans and the national anthem at school, but he wasn't sure yet. Until one summer, just after Ritik's Class X exams, the boy simply began asking, 'Papa are you free today? Will you teach me?'
'That's when I knew,' says Rakesh. 'The music wasn't just around him. It had taken root.'
The sweet weight of inheritance
To inherit is to carry both blessing and burden. Ritik walks that tightrope with grace. 'There's always that quiet comparison,' he says. 'Sometimes it feels like I'm auditioning to be myself.'
It's a quiet rebellion—tempered by reverence. 'I don't want to break away. I just want space to breathe,' he says. 'Guruji always said—the flute isn't an instrument. It's a companion. You don't master it. You speak to it. You listen to it.'
Legacy, for Ritik, isn't something to mimic. It's something to remember. He could have taken the easy path. Mimicry of a legendary style can earn instant adulation. But Ritik chose restraint.
'He doesn't try to impress,' says Mahesh Babu of Banyan Tree. 'He doesn't play to dazzle. He plays to dwell.'
At a Shishya's Collective concert last year, where third-generation musicians gathered, Ritik performed Raga Megh. 'There was a hush in the room,' Babu recalls. 'Not because of what he played—but because of what he didn't. He let the music breathe. That takes courage.'
Even when he ventures beyond classical confines—collaborating with jazz pianists, experimenting with spoken word, or composing for short films—he remains rooted in raag-ras. 'You can wear different colours, but you don't forget your skin,' he says.
His Instagram snippets—sometimes just two minutes of Raag Yaman—aren't meant to chase likes. 'Maybe someone needs it on a rushed morning,' he shrugs.
Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, now in his 80s, watches Ritik with quiet pride. 'He has that bhaav,' he says. 'You can teach notes. You can't teach emotion. That has to come from inside.'
Then, with a playful glint, he adds, 'I fought to make the flute a concert instrument. Rakesh made it global. Now Ritik must make it eternal.'
After a recent dusk recital—Raag Marwa unfurling like twilight—someone whispered, 'He doesn't sound like his grandfather. But he sounds like someone who remembers.' And perhaps that's what makes Ritik's music quietly extraordinary. He doesn't seek to erase what came before. He honours and learns from it. And then -- gently, respectfully—lets it change him.