She was 7 years older than me and I knew her from my childhood as her father great poet Baikunthnath Patnaik was close to my father because of various reasons. Her younger brother Dipankar was a friend of mine .
I am very much pained to hear about her sad demise today. Though on several occasions I had met her earlier as an admirer of her music and had done some news story on her .I had not met her for past many years as she was staying in Kolkota .
Sunanda Patnaik (7 November 1934 – 19 January 2020) was an Indian classical singer of Gwalior gharana from Odisha.[2] Popularly known as “guruma”,[she was considered one of the great dames of Hindustani music. She was the daughter of legendary Oriya poet Baikunthanath Patnaik.
She started singing at All India Radio in Cuttack in 1948 at the age of 14. The then Odisha Governor Asaf Ali once heard her on Radio and was very impressed with her singing and she became a regular fixture at the Raj Bhavan whenever the Governor had guests. Once, President Rajendra Prasad heard her at Puri. He was very impressed with her singing and arranged her training under Pandit Vinayak Rao Pattavardhan at Pune with a scholarship. She was awarded with the degree of Masters in Music by Pune School in 1956. She performed at All India Sadrang Sageet Sammelan in Calcutta in September 1957 where she received 13 gold coins. Since then she did many concerts in India and was known internationally. She was best known for her tarana that she sang at a high pace and was considered one of the best contemporary interpreters of Odissi music. She was staying at Kolkata since 1983.
When Aruna Asaf Ali visited Odisha during tenure of Shri Nilamani Routray as chief minister , she was keen to meet Sunanda Patnaik and Capt. Nilamani Mohanty, who was the Ad.C. of Shri Asaf Ali
Awards
She received Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi award in 1970 and 1971. She received Indian lifetime achievement award in 2009 and lifetime achievement award from The Orissa society of the Americas (OSA) in 2012. She was the recipient of sangeet natak academy award (Tagore Akadami Puraskar) for the year 2012. The degree of doctor of literature was conferred to her by the Utkal University in 1999 and the degree of doctor of music was conferred by the Akhil Bharatiya Gandharva Mahavidyalaya Mandal in 1975.
In popular culture
Nilamadhaba is a National Film Award-winning documentary film about her. The film was directed by Sri Dilip Patnaik and produced by Films Division. It won the “Best Biographical documentary” for the year 2010 at the 58th National Film Award function.
Prasanta Patnaik