When Chhannulal Mishra came to Banaras, he was in his late 30s and carried the intense training of the prestigious Kirana Gharana, one that he’d imbibed under Ustad Abdul Ghani Khan in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur. Born in Azamgarh’s Hariharpur and trained under his father initially, Mishra came to Banaras with a focused ambition to be a serious classical singer, who’d sing khayal. But this was Banaras, a city where musical traditions converged, where the spiritual and the sensual sat together. Pt Chhannulal Mishra, who died at his daughter’s house in Mirzapur on Thursday, leaves behind a music that spoke to everyone. How can one forget the kathakaar tradition he’d follow — be it singing verses from Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas, explaining Ram’s birth and concluding with his homecoming.