Vidyadhar Oke (b 1952) is an Indian doctor, musicologist, harmonium player, and astrology consultant, who has done research in the use of shrutis (microtones) in Indian classical music and created a unique 22-shruti version of the harmonium.
Early life
Oke is a Doctor of Medicine, MBBS, MD (pharmacology) from University of Mumbai, India. He later trained in management at the London Business School and Duke University, U.S.A; and in clinical research at Wellcome Trust, UK. Oke was fortunate to be trained at the Wellcome Research Laboratories at Beckenham, U.K.,where 5 Nobel laureates had worked at a time. Oke met Rajiv Gandhi, the ex-prime minister of India in the "Young Scientists' Meet" convened by Raghunath Anant Mashelkar. For years, he gave services in the Pharmaceutical Industry in organizations including Wockhardt, GlaxoSmithKline, Piramal Group; and at 52 years, he retired as President and dedicated himself to music research.
Oke was educated at Raja Shivaji Vidyalaya (formerly known as King George High School), and Ramnarain Ruia College. He graduated from King Edward Memorial Hospital and Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College. While in school, Oke was selected to play a Chess match with Ramchandra Sapre, the first winner of the Indian Chess Championship. Oke won Badminton championships including the Inter-School/Collegiate and open events convened by Cricket Club of India, Matunga Gymkhana and Central Indian Railways Institute, Mumbai.
Musical career
Oke's maternal grandfather and mother Shanta were harmonium players. Shanta was also a singer and student of Narayanrao Vyas, a disciple of Vishnu Digambar Paluskar. Oke, a renowned third generation harmonium artist playing the instrument since the age of four, later learned from the maestro late Pandit Govindrao Patwardhan for 25 years to become an ace Harmonium player. His first public performance was a harmonium solo in 1972 on Mumbai Doordarshan. He was a performing member at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Mumbai) and played harmonium in music programmes at the centre, arranged by Purushottam Laxman Deshpande and Ashok Ranade. He taught Harmonium as Hon. Lecturer at the Department of Music, University of Mumbai, when Ashok Ranade was the head. He accompanied on harmonium; singers including Asha Bhosale, Vasantrao Deshpande, Sudhir Phadke, Kumar Gandharva, Manik Varma, Malabika Kanan, Rashid Khan, C. R. Vyas, Jitendra Abhisheki, Vidyadhar Vyas, Suresh Wadkar, Jyotsna Bhole, Padma Talwalkar, Shruti Sadolikar, Satyasheel Deshpande, Asha Khadilkar, Upendra Bhat, Shubha Mudgal, Vijay Koparkar, Arati Ankalikar-Tikekar, Veena Sahasrabuddhe, Rahul Deshpande; and played lehra to accompany Tabla Solo by Alla Rakha, with Vocal and Mridangam by T. V. Gopalakrishnan.
He performed in United States and Europe, including a concert in Maharashtra Mandal of London, to support the fund for the victims of 1993 Latur earthquake; and in the convention of Brihan Maharashtra Mandal of North America at Houston, USA. He composed Music for Marathi musical theatre, for dramas including Sanyastha Jwalamukhi based on the life of Swami Vivekananda, and Dnyanoba Maza based on the life of Saint Dnyaneshwar.
Oke; the playwrighter, songwriter and music director of the Sangeet Natak Tajmahal, became the second person in musical theatre in Marathi language after 138 years as the same feat was done first by Annasaheb Kirloskar in 1882 for Sangeet Saubhadra. Sangeet Tajmahal was judged as the best drama in the 59th Maharashtra state sangeet natak competition (2020) and Oke was adjudged as the best playwright and music director. Oke brought to surface the existence of a temple in Mansingh's palace which was taken over by Shahjahan to be the queen's grave, in his own words.
22 Shruti Research
Oke's research on shrutis in the Indian classical music is insightful and potentially revolutionary. Shrutis are the 22 basic musical notes (microtones) which create a Raga. Oke discovered that the sequential progression of the notes can be plotted mathematically, enabling playing them on a string, precisely. Based on a twenty-two shruti system the former physician patented the world's first, unique, patented unique harmonium which can also double up as an Accordion, as he entered the list of Indians who created their own musical instruments. Oke gave lec-dems on his research on shrutis at several locations including a TED-X talk at IIT Gandhinagar.