“The sensitive fingers caress the silver strings; a shower of magical notes intoxicates the enraptured audience; music comes alive when strummed by Ustad Amjad Ali Khan.”
I wrote these words for a Times of India article as a teenager after my first meeting with Ustad Amjad Ali Khan. Khan Sahib and I go a long way back and there is a very funny story on how we first met. I was a young teenager who was clueless about Hindustani classical music in spite of the fact that my mother and santoor maestro Shiv Kumar Sharma, were college mates and she had studied vocal music and tabla for years from his father. I was more into jazz and western classical music. At the time, the film ‘Sholay’ had been released and declared a hit in India. As such, I was asked by Times of India to go interview the actor and one of the stars of the movie, Amjad Khan. Clad in jeans and a T-shirt, accompanied by my brother (who had been a huge fan of Amjad Khan and had memorized all the dialogues to impress the actor), we drove to the address given to us. We walked into a beautiful, elegantly decorated house and sat down. Melodic strains of classical music welcomed us and shortly thereafter an exceedingly handsome, slender man dressed elegantly in a kurta pajama walked in. “Since when did Amjad Khan become so handsome?” whispered my brother, his eyebrows raised, “And when did he lose all the weight?” I kept wracking my brain trying to place the seemingly familiar face. I finally realized with a sinking feeling that this handsome man was my aunt’s heart throb – the world renowned classical musician Amjad Ali Khan who played some instrument called the sarod.
Gathering my wits about me, I told Amjad Ali Khan with the nonchalance and confidence that comes with the brashness of being so young: “This interview is for the youth in India so we will talk about music in laymen’s terms.” I think Khan Sahib immediately knew I had no idea about his music. With the typical grace and graciousness that is so much a part of his persona, he cancelled his appointments and gave me a three hour crash course on the intricacies of the sarod. He talked about its creation, its journey, and his ancestors who are direct descendants of Mian Tansen. He spoke passionately about why his music means so much to him – about its impact, beauty and legacy. His sons Amaan and Ayaan were both young boys then.
At the end of the interview, Khan Sahib played a dhun (semi-classical folk song) based on Raga Pilu for me. As he strummed the notes, I had goose bumps and tears in my eyes. To this day I can hum that entire dhun –it is still so clearly etched in my mind. This meeting began my love affair with Hindustani classical music, and also began a friendship with a wonderful musician and human being. It enriched my mind and gave me a deep appreciation of the culture I belong to. Every time he was in town he would let me know, and I would skip school to go spend time with him. In those three-four years before I moved to the USA, I never had the pleasure of meeting his wife – the lovely Subhalakshmi Khan.
Subhalakshmi Khan was an accomplished Bharat Natyam exponent who gave up everything to nurture her husband’s music and raise two exceptionally talented and well-mannered sons. Each time I would visit, her hand would come out with a tray full of goodies and a servant would serve us. Khan Sahib laughed when I told him the truth about our initial meeting later. He said Amjad Khan (the actor) and he were forever exchanging bundles of fan mail that showed up at the wrong address thanks to the similarity in their names. I did finally meet the actor as well (and yes, my brother finally got to recite those memorized dialogues!)
Today I can say this truthfully: Ustad Amjad Ali Khan is perhaps one of the few artists whose music always moves me to tears. As the years have gone by I have noticed his work gaining depth, spirituality and richness. Even as his fame has stretched over many continents along with many awards, accolades and honors, he has stayed the same non-materialistic, exceedingly humble man with an aura that is not of this world.
I came to the US and lost touch with him. Many years later, finally in 2002 he came to Atlanta with his family to perform at a Bengali convention. It was wonderful to see them again, to hear of what Khan Sahib had achieved in the interim years and how Amaan and Ayaan were dabbling with so many different things but still giving first priority to sarod. I finally met Subhalakshmi, and she laughed when I told her it was nice to see all of her and not just her hand! “Khan Sahib has friends of so many age groups, and they are coming in all the time, so I didn’t come out that often!” The lady has an innate honesty and says it like it is. She kept me giggling with stories of the first time she met the maestro and her impression of him. She recalled how he said he would give her space and 6 months to decide if she would marry him, and then called her day and night, until she finally relented. Looking at her pictures, one sees how breathtakingly lovely she was and still is, with her ready smile and a face that seldom stays immobile. When I told her how romantic I thought it was that Khan Sahib surprised her by creating raga Subhalakshmi on her birthday and dedicating it to her, she admitted it was a total surprise and she was very touched. But then added laughingly that she is so blunt, she was surprised Khan Sahib didn’t name it Raga Jwalamukhi! As you get to know her, it is obvious that behind her seemingly blunt exterior is an emotional, soft-hearted woman. It is also evident just how much she loves the three men in her life. When you get to know her sons you see what a wonderful job she has done in bringing them up. They exude natural elegance, courtesy and extreme humility in the way they conduct themselves and treat others.
Fast forwarding to two years later: I was in Michigan last week attending a recital featuring Amjad Ali Khan with his sons Amaan and Ayaan. I flew there especially to see him and his boys again. They were performing for a charity concert to raise funds for A.I.D. (Association for India’s Development). The moment Khan Sahib walked onstage, with his immensely gifted tabla player Sandeep Das, it was mesmerizing music all the way (not to mention my mother’s comment that Khan Sahib seems to get handsomer with each passing year!).
Sandeep Das on tabla.
Tabla player Das, a disciple of Pandit Kishan Maharaj, the doyen of the Benaras gharana, displayed the perfect blend of sweetness and power in his hands. He is one of the emerging superstars of the instrument. He was also in perfect synchrony with Khan Sahib – matching the maestro in mood, dynamics and speed. When one listens to a maestro like Khan Sahib, there is an austere beauty and meditative depth in his music. Khan Sahib’s soulful rendition of the two famous bhajans Vaishnav Janato and Raghupati Raghav Rajaram (both based, as he pointed out, on Ragas Mishra Khamaj and Gara, respectively) had people swaying in their seats. He truly makes his sarod sing. When he said he would play raga Durga an audible gasp of excitement echoed throughout the auditorium. I am sure the Goddess was blessing him doubly – because of the spirituality that emanated from his strings, and also because he made mere mortals like us, the audience come closer to divinity.
Between the pieces he brought a smile to everyone’s lips when he paused to file his nails. He explained that it was a necessary part of the performance – he files after every piece since there are grooves in the finger nails and no frets on the sarod. He uses the nails to slide across the fretless metal board for the meend or glides between notes. There is no pulling of strings involved as in sitar, but he uses his fingertips for the flattened sound and his fingernails for the sustained sound.
Khan Sahib’s solo segment was followed by a joint recital by Amaan and Ayaan who played the raga Puriya Dhanashri. Both Amaan and Ayaan had told me that even though they have both been trained by their father, their style of rendition is very different.
Amaan focuses on speed and power while younger brother Ayaan is a replica of his father with his soft touches of finesse. They have to work hard at blending their personalities and styles but for the most part they seemed to manage pretty well.
The sons seemed to be very proud of the fact that their father had recently been honored with the 15th Fukuoka Asian culture grand prize in Japan.
The last segment had all three on stage performing raga Mishra Kirwani and it was sweet to see the boys are still a little nervous when playing with their father. He would play a taan for each and after one nervous slip by both, the entire segment was a lot of fun, and at the end there were smiles all around. After the show, they sat patiently signing CDs and copies of a biography of their father written by Amaan and Ayaan. It was equally touching to see how they both very thoughtfully looked after Khan Sahib at the dinner table as we talked music and other fun stuff.
Amaan asked me what I thought was the future of their music, what with fusion and so much more that seems to be the rage. I said to him, perhaps the greatest thing about Indian classical music is its resilience and the fact that it is the vast ocean from where every other music seems to derive. As the rivers and tributaries emanate from the ocean they recycle their waters back to the source. Similarly, the cycles of rhythm and melody will always come back to the same 7 notes. Traditions and tastes are in constant evolution, but the power of music is constant and immutable. Even if the purity of sound is polluted, a man like their father comes once in a lifetime to carve a unique niche in the world of music. As long as there are musicians like Ustad Amjad Ali Khan to look up to and as long as we believe in good music, it’s here to stay.
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