Hariprasad Chaurasia's father was a wrestler

[Ram]

Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, the internationally renowned exponent of the bansuri or bamboo flute, surprisingly does not come from a long lineage of flautists. His father was a famous wrestler who had aspirations of his son following in his footsteps (http://www.hariprasadchaurasia.com/biography.htm)

[hundredstrings]

Isn't that amazing?  Not only that he comes from a non-musician family, he started learning music relatively late, when he was 15!  Most maestros start when they are just 4 or 5 and 15 is considered to be late.

In my opinion, Hariji is one of the greatest instrumentalist ever born -- it is hard to think of instrumental music without him, without his bamboo flute (bansuri).  If I were to pick up just three of the Hindustani instrumentalists, then Hariji would be in that list (other two being Ravi Shankar & Shivkumar Sharma).