The name of my mridanga master is Sri Dol Govinda Prabhu, a
native Bengali which is where the mridanga originates, and
devoted disciple of His Divine Grace Srila Bhakti Raksak
Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj. He has regularly attended the
festivals at the glorious Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math for
many many years and now stays at the Math much of the time.
He has trained many students in mridanga for several
decades, and began learning in his teenage years, some
55-60 years ago. His mridanga playing is prominent among
the archival recordings of Srila Sridhar Maharaj and Srila
Govinda Maharaj throughout the 1980s and 1990s, as they
sang their sweet songs of nectar, from the vast storehouse
of pure Gaudiya Vaisnava songs by Srila Bhaktivinoda
Thakur, Srila Narottam das Thakur and other Vaisnava
saints.
Truly it is his technique and skill where he stands apart
from so many other mridanga players and as a student to
focus upon this technical aspect that he is imbibing will
bring rapid progress in the art of mridanga playing. My own
teaching has sprung out of the necessity to share this with
sincere aspiring players, because of the language barrier
and other factors which restrict Dol Govinda Prabhu himself
from sharing his gift. Having lost his eyesight over the
last 15-20 years has only seen his keen awareness of the
sounds of kirttan and mridanga increase even more and his
playing reach the level of a virtuoso.