When Jagannath Samanta had left his village Kashipur in Tamluk, Midnapore, and come to Calcutta, he was around 12. He had lost his father and joined the small shop of earthenware that was owned by his family at Entally Market.

Now 70, he is still here, presiding over his small but elaborate collection of garden pots, kolsis (the rotund pitchers, flying off the shelves in this heat), kunjos (the long-necked pitchers, flying too) and several other clay and terracotta objects for the household and religious rituals.

But he is here half a week. For the remaining half, Samanta is a Hindustani classical vocalist.

Music entered his soul from the neighbourhood. This was in the 60s. Entally — and its market — were cosmopolitan, with substantial populations of Christians and Muslims. Entally was not as privileged as Park Street. Mother Teresa had begun her work here. But it was rich in other things.

The proof of a place is in its comestibles. Much of the front of Entally Market’s simple elegant structure is obscured by new shops and the stalls, but the market retains the spaciousness within, its high ceiling at the centre and an old spirit that allows much to co-exist and is not just the product of nostalgia: it has survived conflicts, then and now.

The sausages that are made here, in front of you, with fresh pork and herbs, are “world famous”, according to several testimonials online, and live up totally to their reputation, even as the bakery alley, with its shops owned by Muslims, overflow with cakes and biscuits that are as delish as affordable. In between lies a world of other goodies, including fresh produce and packaged products of all sorts and handmade barbecue ovens of every size, which can be customised.

It is also not unusual to spot the goddess Kali, Jesus and Mother Teresa looking at you from the same wall of a shop. In the calm that descends on a market in the late afternoon, and as you step gingerly away from bits of discarded spring onion and distressed pumpkin marinated in the market-floor mush, this fills you with hope.

Samanta grew up here. He was first admitted to Carey’s High School and then to St Peter’s High School in the locality. In his free time, he worked at the shop. He lived in the market, with his male relatives who ran the shop, in a small room close to the shop. He still lives in it.

At the second school, he was part of the choir. The high notes opened something up for him. They were uplifting. He began to sing hymns at the church. At the same time, one of his friends in school played the sitar.

Samanta’s life began to be controlled by music. He began a restless search for it. And for its teachers.

In 1972, after matriculation, advised by his sitar-player friend, he began to train under Pandit Dinanath Mishra at his Bowbazar address. “I was started on the ragas Yaman and Maru Bihag by Panditji,” remembers Samanta.

Circumstances stopped him from training under Mishra. Samanta often ran into extreme financial hardship in his early years, which came in the way of learning music. But this also made him more dogged.

After Mishra, Samanta trained in the city for a steady six to seven years with Amiya Chattopadhyay of the Lucknow gharana, who would divide his time between Calcutta and Lucknow. Chattopadhyay would teach from his Surya Sen Street residence. Samanta was grateful to find in another student there a lifelong friend, at whose nearby Tamer Lane house, he would be allowed to practise.

“It was a little difficult to practise singing in the middle of a market,” laughs Samanta. Which is why he also did not stop himself from learning the behala, from Indranath Goswami. “You can practise it even inside a market,” he says.

“I have never wanted anything out of music other than being able to practise it,” says Samanta.

With Chattopadhyay, whom Samanta remembers with gratitude and warmth, he had travelled to Lucknow once, where Chattopadhyay would take him to visit the Morris College of Music. “I learnt a lot from the discussions there,” he says.

In Calcutta, he was later trained by vocalists Nassir Hussain Khan of the Agra gharana and Samaresh Chowdhury. Samanta remembers these two teachers with immense gratitude and respect, too. He would accompany Hussain to many programmes as an accompanying vocalist. He remembers a programme in Serampore, where vocalist Sharafat Hussain Khan, Nassir Hussain Khan's more famous cousin, also performed.

But Samanta was never satisfied. In the late 1970s, he had left for Gwalior, to find out about the Gwalior gharana. “The laykari of the Agra gharana was a bit too much for me,” he says.

He had landed in Gwalior with Rs 1,000. He found his guru there in Ram Marathi, and a home in Ramakrishna Mission.

In the Gwalior tradition, among other things, the words are pronounced very clearly, he says.

In Calcutta, he had trained under Sachchidananda Maharaj and later under Gautam Roy.

“I have been very fortunate,” says Samanta. His family did not ever stop him from anything.

From the early 1980s, however, he had to support his family. His sisters’ weddings were being arranged. Then the family arranged for his marriage. He had to focus his attention more on his shop than on the tanpura. When his daughter was born, he began to devote even more time to his family, which now lives in Tamluk town.

He stopped taking music lessons. But he would start giving them soon.

For years now, he has been living between Calcutta and Tamluk. He spends the first part of the week at his shop and then leaves for home, where he teaches classical vocal to a small group of children. Through the years, he has taught many. One of them is a musician.

His grandson is one of his students, he says proudly.

“I have done little,” he says. “But I have tried.”

“I am familiar with not more than a hundred ragas, in my limited way. I like Puria Dhanashree. Also Darbari Kanada and Malkauns,” he says. “I like Puria Dhanashree because of the way it uses the meend.”

It uses another kind of synthesis. It is an evening (sandhi-prakash, the hour when day meets night) raga. “Raga Marwa, another evening raga, is another favourite,” he says.

And though it was arrogant of him, he says, he once decided to perform Marwa, for which no less a singer than Amir Khan was famous. “I was cautioned, but I sang it nevertheless at a Gwalior concert.”