I have traced my path into Indian Classical Music mainly holding hands of my
mother Dr. Anita Banerjee a devout admirer of this art. More than the music in
itself I was awed in my initial years mainly from her accounts of these
musicians and their lives, which I may add were a distinct deviation from the
ones we see today. My mother had the good fortune of seeing this man perform in
her paternal house every year during the Kali Puja. She used to
enthusiastically be in the forefront to hear this man play and interact with
the children, of which my mother was one. Ustaad Allauddin Khan Sahab.
A
famous disciple of Wazir Khan and an extraordinary teacher and performer
himself, Ustad Alauddin Khan, also known as Baba Allauddin Khan, occupied a
very high place of pride in Indian Classical Music. In fact Ustad Alauddin Khan
belonged to that rare and small group of artists who became a legend in their
own life time by the sheer weight of their learning, hard work and ceaseless
propagation of music. His was a life of total dedication to classical music and
maintaining its pristine glory and grandeur. More important than all this, the
late Ustad by his uncompromising devotion to classical tradition succeeded
during his life time in building up certain norms in the teaching and
presentation of music which, unfortunately, are once again in the melting pot.
This saintly and learned man became my main inspiration in the instrument Sarod,
and it is to him that I owe my devotion and love for Indian Classical music. He
is best known globally as the guru of India's finest Hindustani classical music
instrumentalists — Pt.Ravi Shankar (sitar), the late Ustad Ali Akbar Khan
(sarod), Annapurna Devi (surbahar), the late Pt.Pannalal Ghosh (flute) and
Pt.VG Jog (violin). Evidently, he was a versatile musician and a prolific
teacher.
Most
of this narrative is as I heard from my mother and some books that I have had
the good fortune to read. My mother saw him for the first time on stage at the
All-Bengal Music Conference in December, 1964. In contrast to the other
musicians, who were wearing colorful costumes, turbans, and jewels, and were
bedecked with medals, he seemed very plain and ordinary, not at all impressive.
But even in her immaturity, it did not take her long to realize that he had
qualities that far outshone the gaudiness of his colleagues. He seemed to shine
with a fire that came from within him.
Although she did not know enough about music then to discern his musical
greatness, she had found herself completely overwhelmed by everything about
him. Baba has been known as a strict disciplinarian with his students (Ravi
Shankar's book, 'My Music My Life'), but he had imposed upon himself an
even stricter code of conduct when he was a young man, often practicing sixteen
to twenty hours a day, doing with very little sleep, and getting along with a
minimum of material things. Sometimes, when he practiced, he tied up his long
hair with heavy cord and attached an end of the cord to a ring in the ceiling.
Then, if he happened to doze while he practiced, as soon as his head nodded, a
jerk on the cord would pull his hair and awaken him. From early childhood, Baba
was ready and determined to make any sacrifice for music. Indeed, his entire
life has been devoted to music.
Allauddin
Khan was one of the sons of a quite well-to-do peasant family in Bengal. They
did not have a great deal of money, but were very rich in the land they owned
and the animals they kept. His family was Bengali Muslims, converted to Islam
only three or four generations before. The village they lived in was
predominantly Hindu, and they all spoke Bengali. And so, even though his family
was Muslim, Baba knew all the ways of Hindus and was well acquainted with their
customs and ceremonies. Later, he was to follow a way of life that was a
beautiful fusion of the best of both Hinduism and Islam.
His
father used to play the sitar for the family and for his own pleasure. And
Baba's older brother, Aftabuddin, was a very talented and versatile musician
who, too, did not perform professionally but played solely to express the music
he felt within himself. In his later years, he became a very religious man and
was revered equally by the Hindus and the Muslims who knew him. So it was
natural that the musical inclinations of little Alam, as Baba was called by his
family, were intensified by listening to his father with the sitar and his
brother playing a variety of instruments, including the flute, harmonium (a
small, boxlike keyboard instrument), Tabla, Pakhawaj, and Dotara (a
plucked-string instrument with two strings). Young Alam used to steal into the
little music room at home to try to play some of his older brother's musical
instruments - and was frequently punished for it. When his family realized that
Alam had this burning love for music, they became worried that he might decide
to be a professional musician and did not encourage him, for music was not
thought of as a respectable profession for a young man. When young Alam wanted
to leave his home and devote all his life to music, his brother, the
influential one in the family, refused to let him go. The family much preferred
that he take up regular studies in a school.
Baba
has often mentioned that by the time he was eight he could no longer take the
strict discipline and enforced study of books. He hated studying and was
constantly being punished for pursuing the thing he loved most - music. So, he
left his family without saying a word and traveled to a nearby village, where
he joined a party of traveling musicians led by a very famous player of the Dhol.
(Though the drums known as Dhol or Dholak are found all over India in different
sizes and shapes, the Dhol mentioned here is indigenous to Bengal. It is a
one-piece drum with two faces and is played with the hand on the right side and
with a stick on the left.) Baba told the musicians he was an orphan, and they
accepted him into their group, feeling sorry for the lonely little boy. Then he
traveled with the musicians as they toured, and they reached the city of Dacca,
the capital of the present Bangladesh. While he was a member of this musical
group, Baba had the opportunity to learn to play quite proficiently many
varieties of drums-the Dhol, Tabla, and Pakhawaj-and he also took up the Shehnai
and some other wind instruments-clarinet, cornet, and trumpet. During all the
time Baba toured with this troupe of musicians and later stayed in Dacca, he
did not communicate with his family. They were of course distraught when they
realized he had left. They searched and searched for him, but finally had to
give up.
BABA'S
EARLY ADVENTURES
The
first forty years of Baba's life were full of adventure, and he underwent many
unusual, almost unbelievable, experiences through his intense love of music.
Baba was never clear about how long he was with these musicians or how much
time he spent in Dacca, but he remembered that he arrived in Calcutta when he
was about fourteen or fifteen and about the hardships he suffered there.
He went to one of the
most famous Bengali singers of the day, Nulo Gopal, a very devout and orthodox
Hindu. Baba instinctively thought it might be better if he said he was a Hindu
himself when he approached this teacher, so he took a Hindu name. Nulo Gopal
saw the tremendous ardor and talent for singing this boy had, but he warned
Baba that he himself had learned music in a very old, traditional style and
said that he would teach Baba only if Baba had the patience to learn in the
same way. That is, Baba would have to learn and practice nothing other than the
sargams, palta, and murchhana (solfeggio, scales, and exercises) for twelve
full years.
Only
then would Nulo Gopal start teaching all the traditional compositions. This, he
said, would not take a very long time, because Baba would already have a firm
background! Baba did agree to the arrangement, and arduously devoted himself to
his study, but unfortunately, after only seven years or so, Nulo Gopal died.
Baba was so grieved by his death that, out of respect to his teacher, he took
an oath never to take up singing as his profession. According to Baba, the
excellent training he received from this guru in those seven years caused his
musical sensitivity to grow to such a degree that he could notate in his mind
as well as on paper any music he heard. This ability was to prove very helpful
to him later.
During
the seven years Baba was learning with Nulo Gopal, he took a job at the Star
Theatre (run by Girish Ghosh, the father of Bengali drama) as a Tabla player in
the orchestra to make a little money, and he had some training in the playing
of the violin from an outstanding Indian Christian teacher. Baba also
participated in the frequent orchestral parties held by a prominent composer,
Habu Dutt, who was the brother of the famed Swami Vivekananda. Habu Dutt had
studied both Eastern and Western music and maintained an orchestra for which he
composed in raga and tala framework; he used all the Western instruments as
well as a few Indian ones. This later inspired Baba to create his own ensemble,
the Maihar Band, which was quite famous for many years.
It
was often frightening just to hear Baba talk about the hardships he suffered as
a young man in Calcutta. The little pay he received at the Star Theatre and
occasional extra income he got by playing a recital here or there all went to
pay for gifts or offerings he brought to his teachers-fruits or sweets-in
gratitude for their giving him lessons. Most of the time he had his one meal a
day at some “Anna Chhatra”, a food
dispensary provided for the poor by some rich families. (Until very recently,
these existed in all the large cities as a common form of charity.) The rest of
the day Baba either went hungry or nibbled at a handful of chick peas or drank
the water of the river Ganges. He had no one particular place to stay. Sometimes
he took a room in a cheap boarding- house, and other times he stayed in the
stable of a wealthy family.
When
he was in his twenties, Baba went to a city called Muktagacha, then in eastern
Bengal, now in Bangladesh. It was here, at the court of Raja Jagat Kishore,
that he heard the celebrated Sarod player of the time, Ustad Ahmad Ali, and for
the first time, he experienced the full effect of the musician and the beauty
of the music. In his studies under Nulo Gopal, Baba had felt he was approaching
the field of strict classical music, but when his guru died, he thought he had
reached only the threshold of the musical sanctuary. He realized he needed
another good teacher to elevate him to a higher level in his playing and
understanding. So, he decided just then, in the Raja's court, that he must take
this musician as his guru and learn to play the Sarod.
Baba's
burning desire to learn and a recommendation from the Raja persuaded Ahmad Ali
to accept the boy as his disciple. When Baba began learning from Ahmad Ali, he
gave up all his old dilettante musical interests and devoted himself solely to
the Sarod. The next four years or so were spent living and traveling with his Ustad,
serving him in every way, even cooking, and learning and practicing music as
much as he could.
After
some time, Ahmad Ali left the court and traveled to his home, the city of
Rampur, taking Baba with him. By this time, Baba had learned a great deal of
the art and technique of the Sarod and had absorbed most of the knowledge of
his Ustad. Somehow, he felt that Ahmad Ali was a bit apprehensive about Baba's
proficiency and was afraid that Baba might outdo him as a musician. One day, it
happened that his guru called Baba and said that he had given him enough Taleem
(training) and praised him for achieving a fine standard of musicianship. Now,
he said, it is time for you to go out and perform, and establish your own reputation,
following the tradition of Sikkha, Dikkha, and Parikkha (derivations from the
original Sanskrit of Shiksha, Diksha, and Pariksha, which mean training,
initiation, and evaluation).
Since
Rampur was the most important seat of Hindustani classical music, Baba was
overjoyed when he learned there were almost five hundred musicians who belonged
to the court of His Highness the Nawab of Rampur. Out of these, at least fifty
ranked among the foremost artists and were famed throughout India. They
included singers of Dhrupad, Dhamar, Khayal, Tappa, and Thumri, as well as
players of been, Sursringar, Rabab, Surbahar, Sitar, Sarangi, Shehnai, Tabla, Pakhawaj,
and many other instruments. At the head of all these musicians was the truly
great Wazir Khan himself, a member of the Beenkar Gharana, and thus of the
family of Tan Sen. He was the guru of the Nawab and, in his seat next to the
Nawab's throne, enjoyed a position that was unique at that time. After taking
leave of Ustad Ahmad Ali, Baba went on a kind of musical "binge," and
he met all the Ustaads and studied a little with a great many of them for a
year or so. He was completely intoxicated with the ecstasy of meeting all these
great musicians. After Baba settled down a bit, he decided he must finally go
to learn from the greatest musician of them all, and the one about whom he had
heard so many stories - Wazir Khan.
A
GESTURE IN DESPERATION
Ustaad
Wazir Khan, a direct descendant of Tan Sen, was the greatest living been player
of the time. Filled with enthusiasm and bubbling with hope, Baba went off to
meet him, but the sentries, who guarded Ustad Wazir Khan's gates, frowning at
the young man's shabby dress and poor appearance, denied him entrance. In
despair, young Allauddin Khan rather melodramatically decided that he would
either learn from this great master or give up his life. Nourishing these
severe thoughts, he bought two tola weight of opium with which to kill himself
if necessary. But fortunately, he met a mullah (Muslim priest), who dissuaded
him from such extreme measures and suggested another plan.
The
mullah composed a letter in Urdu on behalf of the young aspirant, explaining
how he had come all the way from Bengal especially to learn from Ustaad Wazir
Khan, and if that were to prove impossible, he would swallow a lump of opium
and end his life. But there remained the problem of presenting the letter to
the Nawab. While the spirit of desperation was mounting, young Allauddin
happened to hear that the Nawab would soon be on his way to the theater, so he
stationed himself on the road, hours ahead, and as the Nawab's vehicle finally
ap- proached, he threw himself down in front of it.
The
police dragged young Allauddin Khan away to face the Nawab, who, when he heard
the whole story, was so impressed by the fervor of a young man ready to use
such grave methods that he called him to the palace to play for him.
Baba
gave a very impressive performance on the sarod and on the violin, and then was
asked if he could handle any other instruments. The Nawab was quite amused when
Baba, replying, boasted that he could play any instrument available in the
palace. So, all the instruments were brought out and, to the astonishment of
everyone present, he did just that - one by one, he played them all, and quite
deftly, too ! The Nawab asked him if he had any other talents, and Baba said
that he could write anything played or sung. The Nawab was overwhelmed when
Baba did this easily on the first attempt. The Nawab then sang him a very
difficult gamak tan, a complicated embel- lishment in a phrase. Fortunately,
young Allauddin had detected that the Nawab was becoming a little annoyed at
the thought that such a young man might know more than he, and so he meekly
replied that such a tan would be difficult to write down. The Nawab was so
pleased at this that, in a benevolent mood, he sent for Ustad Wazir Khan and
recommended young Allauddin to him as a deserving student. The Nawab himself
called for a large silver tray full of gold sovereigns, sweets, material for
new clothing, a ring, and new shoes. All these were given to Wazir Khan on
behalf of the disciple, and the binding ceremony between Wazir Khan as Ustaad
and Allauddin Khan as Shaagird took place on the spot.
As
Baba has said, from the time he moved to Calcutta until he came to Rampur, he
had communicated with his family and had visited their home several times. His
family, hoping they could give him a reason to stay with them, forced him to
take a wife on one of his visits, and later, had him marry a second time.
(Muslims may marry up to four times.) But to their horror, Baba ran away from
home on the day after each marriage ceremony. His fanatic love for music left
no room for such things as marriage or a family then.
In
his first two and a half years as a disciple of Wazir Khan, Baba more or less
had the duties of a servant and errand boy to his guru and was not really being
taught music by him. Baba was rather unhappy about this, but he still spent as
much time as he could practicing what he had learned from Ahmad Ali and others
on the Sarod. Then one day, there came a telegram to him in care of Wazir Khan,
asking him to come home immediately because his second wife had tried to commit
suicide and was critically ill. She was an extremely beautiful woman, and the
people of her village had tormented her, saying she could not keep her husband
at home for all her good looks, and teased her to such an extent that in her
unhappiness she tried to kill herself. Wazir Khan had the telegram read (it was
in English) before passing it on to Baba. He was shocked and not a little angry
to learn about this, because Baba had told him that he was completely alone and
had no family. Immediately, he summoned Baba. After being interrogated, Baba
tremblingly revealed the truth. When the great man heard the story, he was
deeply moved. He realized that this was a young man with an unheard-of,
abnormal desire to learn music, a love so strong that he would forsake anything
else in life, including the love of two young and beautiful wives.
In
tears, Wazir Khan embraced Baba, saying he had never realized any of these
things, and he felt extremely sorry that he had not paid any attention to Baba
in those two and a half years. Then he advised Baba to go home for a while, and
as soon as he had straightened matters out, to return to Rampur. Wazir Khan
promised that he would consider Baba as his foremost and best disciple outside
of his own family, and said he would teach him all the secrets of the art of
music that the members of Tan Sen's family possess. "I'll teach you all
the dhrupad and dhamar songs," he said, "and the technique and
different baj [styles of playing] of the been, rabab, and sursringar." He
qualified his vow, however, by saying he could never permit Baba to play the
Been, because it is traditionally restricted to the Beenkar Gharana - his family
- and he warned that if Baba were to play it Baba would never have an heir and
his family would die out. Then Wazir Khan further explained that it would be
quite possible for Baba to use all the techniques and styles of playing the Been
on the Sarod, and he agreed to teach him to play the Rabab and Sursringar, two
instruments that were going out of use at that time.
Wazir Khan did indeed
keep his promises, and many years later, when Baba was serving His Highness the
Maharaja of Maihar, one day news arrived that Wazir Khan was on his deathbed.
Baba rushed straightway to Rampur to be with his guru. Wazir Khan blessed him
before he died; saying that Baba's name and the names of his disciples would
live forever and carry on the great tradition of the Beenkar gharana and the
glory of Mian Tan Sen.
THE
REMARKABLE ''IMPURIST''
Few
people have any idea of the contributions Baba has made to the world of music,
especially in the instrumental field. Above all, I feel, he is responsible for
enlarging the scope and range of possibilities open to an instrumentalist. He
has led us away from the confines of narrow specialization that prevailed in
our music really through the first quarter of this century. Until then, one
player would do only music of a light and delicate nature, and another would
perform only romantic compositions, some musicians were purely spiritual and
others emphasized the "materialistic" side of the music - the wealth
of embellishment. Because Ustaad Allauddin Khan, as a young man, was taught by
so many masters, he learned a variety of styles of singing and playing and
acquired a good many instrumental techniques - wind and bowed and
plucked-string instruments, and even drums.
And
so he very naturally incorporated in his playing of the Sarod some of the
characteristics of diverse vocal styles and of the playing styles associated
with a number of different instruments. He is known mainly as a Sarod player,
but he also performed on several other instruments. He was equally well known
as a violinist, and as he did with the Sarod, he played the violin with his
left hand. Three stringed instruments that he did not perform on in concerts
are the Been, the Sitar, and the Surbahar, although he was acquainted with
their techniques.
Musicians
who follow Baba's example may now choose from a great many vocal and
instrumental styles-Alap, Dhrupad-Dhamar, Khayal, Tarana, Tappa, Thumri-and
synthesize, creating a whole new concept in interpretation and performance.
Baba faced much criticism in the beginning. Early in his career, he was
reproached for not playing "pure Sarod" when he performed and was
criticized for bringing other techniques into his playing. For even into the
late 1930s, sitar playing was restricted to a very limited dimension, and the
players kept to their favorite specialized areas of music. There were some who
used a small sitar for the "authentic" sitar baj (here baj means
style of playing) and played only medium-slow Masitkhani gats with simple tans
(or phrases), a style of composition created by Masit Khan. There were others
who played only medium- fast Rezakhani gats and still others who used a rather
large sitar and played it more or less in the way one plays the Surbahar (a
large, deep-sounding instrument with very thick strings). I have heard the well
known sitarist Enayat Khan play the alap, jor, and jhala (first three movements
of a raga) on the Surbahar, then put aside that instrument and take up a small
sitar to do the fast Rezakhani gat. His father, Emdad Khan, is known to have
done the same thing.
The
criticisms of "impurity" of style are likely to come from other musicians
who use the same instrument, and they and their admirers can cause quite a
storm of differing opinion. Also, musicians who do not belong to one strong and
well-established Gharana are often open to harsh judgments. A musician who is a
member of a certain Gharana may - and often does - change his style, enriching
and expanding it after hearing other musicians and interpreting their ideas in
his own way. But, if questioned about this, he has recourse to the shelter of
his Gharana. He can claim that there is a precedent for what he has done and
trace it back through his own Gharana's traditions. Often, though, I am amazed
that a musician who upholds the highest tradition can be cruelly criticized if
he also happens to be a creative artist and brings about many innovations. The
great Tan Sen and then Sadarang and even Allauddin Khan faced this sort of
criticism early in their careers, but later their "innovations"
became part of our musical tradition, and , were well established through their
disciples. That is one of the beauties of Indian classical music - that since
the Vedas it has never stood stagnant, but has kept on growing and being
enriched by the great creative geniuses of successive generations.
As
a teacher, Baba aimed at perfecting the hand and finger technique of the
student. No matter what instrument the student may choose, Baba insisted that
the student who shows promise should also learn to sing the Palta, Sargams, and
other song compositions, carefully delineating the scope of the raga and its
distinctive notes and phrases and correctly using the microtones, or shrutis,
to give the proper effect to the music and make it come alive. The reason for
this is, of course, that the basis of Indian Classical music is vocal, and it
is composed primarily of melody, of embellishment, and of rhythm; any melodic
phrase, with or without a definite rhythm, that can be sung can also be played
on an instrument, with each instrument's own features bringing a special
quality to the sound. According to our tradition, even the instrumentalists are
required to have a moderate command of the voice. This makes it easier for them
when they take on the role of teacher to instruct their students, merely by
singing the gats, or tans, or todas, or even the alap, jor, and jhala. Along
with the ability to sing the melodies, Baba recommended that his students learn
to play the tabla and acquire a good knowledge of taladhaya (rhythmics). In
mastering the fundamentals, the student learns all the technique of properly
handling the instrument of his choice, working in the particular idiom, tonal
range, and musical scope of a given instrument by practicing scales, palta,
sargams, and bols taught by the guru. Generally, Baba started with basic ragas
like Kalyan for the evening and Bhairav for the morning, first giving, many
pieces of "fixed music" in the form of gats, tans, or todas based on
the raga. By "fixed music" I do not mean music that is written down
as it is in the West; rather I am referring to what we call Bandishes, which
literally means "bound down," but in this context means
"fixed." These are vocal or instrumental pieces, either traditional
compositions or the teacher's own, that students learn and memorize by playing
over hundreds, even thousands, of times, to be able to produce the correct,
clear sound, intonation, and phrasing. Thus, Baba laid a solid foundation for
the student to know the sanctified framework of the ragas and talas.
When
the student, after some years of training, had fairly good control of the basic
technique of the instrument and had learnt a few more important morning and
evening ragas (Sarang, Todi, Bhimpalasi, Bhairav, Yaman Kalyan, Bihag, and so
on) and had some mastery of the fundamentals of solo playing, then he may expand
his creative faculties and was encouraged to improvise as he played. But he had
to be careful not to impinge on the purity of the raga. That is, his playing
must be correct both in technique and interpretation. The right feeling of a
raga was something that must be taught by the guru and nurtured from the germ
of musical sensitivity within the student. Unlike some other musicians, Baba
had never been stingy or jealous about passing on to deserving students the
great and sacred art that he possessed. In fact, when he was inspired in his
teaching, it is as if a floodgate had opened up and an ocean of beautiful and
divine music was flowing out. The disciple spent many hours simply listening to
his guru, and then he endeavored to fill up the frame of a raga with improvised
passages born out of the compelling mood of the moment or enlarged through his
own attempts at improvisation as his understanding grows and he becomes more
familiar with a particular raga. At first, the student may improvise only a
fraction of his performance, but as his musicianship matures, so his confidence
grows, and he improvised more and more. It is, in a way, like learning to swim.
It was exhilarating in the beginning to feel your own body moving through the
water, but you are afraid to swim far and there is always the fear of losing
control somehow. So it is with a raga. You are always a little afraid at first
that you will make mistakes, play the wrong notes, and go out of a raga or lose
count of the rhythm as the raga carries you along, but your confidence keeps
growing, and one day, you feel you have complete control over what you are
playing. A truly excellent and creative musician of the Hindustani system will
improvise anywhere from fifty to ninety per cent of his music as he performs,
but this freedom can come about only after many many years of basic study and
discipline and organized training (if he has a good deal of talent to begin
with), and after profound study of the ragas, and finally, if he has been
blessed with guru-kripa, the favor of the guru.
A
LEGENDARY TEMPER
Besides
being famous for his performances and innovations in music, Baba was also very
well known throughout the musical world for his temper. But people still him to
be so gentle and unassuming, endowed with the virtue of vinaya (humility) in
the true Vaishnav spirit. It is only when he is wrapped up utterly in his music
that he becomes a stern taskmaster, for he cannot tolerate any impurities or
defects in the sacred art of music, and he has no sympathy or patience with
those who can. His own life has been one of rigorously self-imposed discipline,
and he expected no less from his students. Baba's views on celibacy and
especially on intoxication through alcohol or drugs were extremely rigid and
severe. He strongly insisted that the students follow Brahmacharya - for the
disciple, a traditional Hindu way of life that includes only the absolute
essentials of material needs. This way, with no thoughts of fine clothes, fancy
foods, sex or complicated love affairs or anything else that satisfied and
encouraged physical desires, the student can channel all of his powers and
forces, both mental and physical, into the discipline of his music. Music, to
Baba, was a strict, lifelong discipline that required long and careful training,
and if a student was not prepared to regard music in this way, he had better
not take it up at all.
Unfortunately,
Baba no longer travelled or performed in the later stages of his life, although
on special occasions he may be seen playing the violin or conducting the famous
Maihar Band (an ensemble of Indian and Western instruments) of which he was still
the director. He also continued as Principal of the Maihar College of Music
which he attended every day. In 1952, Baba was made a Fellow of the Sangeet
Natak Akademi (National Academy of Performing Arts), and in 1958, he was
awarded the Padma Bhusan, an honorary title for out- standing citizens, by the
President of the academy. Viswa Bharati, Tagore's university, gave him the honorary
degree of Doctor. Thus, honor and recognition came to him in the evening of his
life, but he remained, following the saying in the Gita, unmoved and unruffled
as he pursued his work and the study of music, never bothering, never worrying
or looking back. Baba himself believed that he was well over a hundred years
old, and his centenary had already been marked. His true age is not known,
because records have not been kept, but what does it matter if he was over a
hundred or nearing a hundred? What he had accomplished in his lifetime many
others could not do if they had three hundred years to live. He was respected
and well regarded by everyone, including the most orthodox Hindu Brahmins, as a
rishi, responsible for safeguarding traditions, for developing, teaching, and
passing on to disciples the art of music.
There are so many
things one could add about Ustad Allauddin Khan. He belonged to a school that
seemed so far removed from our modern industrial era, and yet, in every way, he
has been ahead of his time, injecting a new significance and life into Indian
instrumental music. With him will pass an era that upheld the dedicated,
spiritual outlook handed down by the great munis and rishis who considered the
sound of music, nad, to be Nada Brahma - a way to reach God.
Sources:
Dr.
Anita Banerjee
(Ravi
Shankar's book, 'My Music My Life'),
David Phhilpson
Rttwik Ghatak
