Of course, he had no such surgery, but through dedicated riyaz (practice), Pannalal invented and perfected the technique to play the large instrument. As a flute of this size was hitherto unknown, a rumor arose that Pannalal had had surgery to cut the webbing between his fingers to facilitate the large span required to cover the finger holes of the instrument. He finally settled on a bansuri which was thirty two inches long, with a Sa (tonic) at Kali "Do" (the second black key on the old harmonium scale = ~ D#). With his help Pannalal experimented with various materials including metal and other types of wood, but decided bamboo was still the most suitable medium for a larger instrument. He met an old Muslim toy vendor who was also proficient in making flutes. With his skill as a boxer and martial art expert, he later landed a job as a coach in an athletic club in Calcutta. One year later, at the age of 18, Pannnalal lost his father. In the teeming metropolis he found himself without any credentials except that he was a boxing champion and had won the All Bengal competition in boxing. Pannalal was then working for the "Prabashi" press (a respected Bengali literary magazine). Pannalal came to Calcutta to stay with his elder sister, Parimal Kana Roy, who was an accomplished singer, and her husband, Lalit Chandra Roy, who was a very good boxer. So at the age of seventeen Pannalal left Barisal and went to Calcutta in search of livelihood. He became more involved in the freedom movement and the British Government started keeping a watch on his movements. He became the best student and champion of this gymnasium. Pannalal was very fond of physical culture. He enrolled in a gymnasium where he learned martial arts, boxing, and stick fighting and practiced physical culture. Pannalal also joined this freedom movement. There was a political unrest in 1928, and every youth was possessed with the freedom movement. This removed the doubt from the mind of young Pannalal and he selected Flute as his main instrument. The sadhu gave him the flute and told the boy that music would be his salvation. The sadhu asked Pannalal if he could play the flute, and young Pannalal obliged. Two years later, when Pannalal had gone to the cremation ground to attend the last rites of one of his school teachers he met a sadhu who held both a conch and a flute. He retrieved the instrument and so began his lifelong relationship with the bansuri. First, at age 9 while looking for a stick, Pannalal found a flute floating in the river.
Two apocryphal incidents happened to young Pannalal which had an influential bearing on his later life.
The family first lived in the village of Amanatganj (near Barisal, a city in south-central Bangladesh) and later moved to the town of Fatehpur in Satkhira District in south-western Bangladesh. Pannalal Ghosh's mother, Sukumari Ghosh, was herself a very talented singer. He also learned music from his maternal uncle, Bhavaranjan Mazumdar who was a vocalist. He inherited his love of music and the bamboo flute (bansuri) from his grandfather, HarKumar Ghosh who played sitar, tabla,and pakhawaj and learned sitar from his father, Akshay Kumar Ghosh. Born in Barisal, East Bengal (now Bangladesh) on July 24, 1911, Amal-Jyoti Ghosh (nicknamed Pannalal) was a child prodigy.
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