Hemen & Co – The Divine JourneyThe Company was started around 1947 by the Late Hemen Chandra Sen a beloved apprentice of the late Baba Allauddin Khan of Maihar Gharana and also that of the late Ustad Ayet Ali Khan, the father of Ustad Bahadur Khan. History goes that one day while learning the Sitar with Ustad Allauddin Khan Hemen ji’s Sitar broke. But, Hemen ji all by himself instantaneously fixed the sitar without any delay and made it as good as new. His acumen and skills really impressed the group of stalwarts present there like Ustad Allauddin Khan, Ustad Ayet Ali Khan, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and including Ustad Ravi Shankar as well. Following this, one fine day Ustad Allauddin Khan told Hemen ji to repair his damaged Sarods and set them back to working order. Since then began the illustrious and glorious journey. Ustad Allauddin Khan gave all his damaged Maihar instruments to Hemen ji and the latter started working on them relentlessly. From that point onwards Hemen ji started taking care of Indian musical instruments. He was attended by masters and geniuses then onwards like Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Ustad Ravi Shankar, Pandit Nikhil Banerjee and Annapurna Devi. Hemen ji was also attended by Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan and also by his son the

legendary Ustad Amjad Ali Khan. This was the genesis of the Company and since then the Company has relentlessly been serving all the musical legends and maestros across the globe and proved itself as an avant-garde.

Hitherto, the Company has served a huge list of musical icons from the legendary George Harrison in 1975 to Baba Allauddin Khan, Ustad Ayet Ali Khan, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, to Anoushka Shankar, Ustad Vilayat Khan, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, vocalist Rashid Khan, vocalists Rajan and Sajan Mishra, Aarti Mukherjee, the Apeejay Surrendra Group to name a few.

For his accomplishments and contribution to Indian classical music over the years the Late Hemen Sen received a myriad of awards, two of the most distinguished being the Hafiz Ali Khan Award in 2001 honored by the then Prime Minister of India Sri Atal Bihari Vajpayee with a greeting and felicitation letter from the then President of India Sri K.R Narayanan. The ceremony was conducted by Ustad Amjad Ali Khan at Gwalior. And, the other being the Vidyarthi Samman Award honored by renowned film-actor Sri Ashish Vidyarthi in the Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata.

The activities and accomplishments of the company has always been a piece of conversation in the media. Consequently, they have been regularly published in pre-eminent and prominent newspapers and magazines like The Times of India, The Telegraph, The Hindustan Times, The Anandabazar Patrika, international music magazine Rave, Indian-English magazine OPEN etc.

Even today the Company successfully continues to satiate every demand of the music lovers be of any age and still continues to be the one-stop solution for music and ancillary support on the lips of every music lover and exporting musical instruments and ancillaries around the world.