Gandharvi: Life of a Musician, by the Sahitya Akademi Award-winning novelist Bani Basu (and translated by English scholar Jayita Sengupta), tells the story of Apala, a gifted singer of Hindustani classical music. She was born into an old, middle-class family of limited means in north Calcutta. To her family, her music meant little, as it did not fit their idea of