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SAJAN PIYA A Biography of Ustad Khadim Husain Khan

by N. JAYAVANTH RAO Published in January, 1981

(C) Sajan Milap & N. Jayavanth Rao

This book or any portion thereof shall not be reproduced in any Form without the written permission of the author or Sajan Milap.

Originally Published by Sajan Milap, C/o. S. S. Haldankar 4, Raghav Wadi, Haldankar (French) Bridge, Bombay 400 007

Originally Printed by Felix Aranha at Ahura Printing Press, Royal Industrial Estate, 5-B Naigaum Cross Road, Bombay 400 031 To My Dear Amma who nurtured a deep love of music in me right from my childhood

CONTENTS

AUTHOR’S NOTE ...... 8 1. GHARANAS: THEIR ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION...... 12 2. AGRA GHARANA AND ITS USTADS ...... 16 3. USTAD KHADIM HUSAIN KHAN: FAMILY, BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD ...... 28 4. USTAD KHADIM HUSAIN KHAN'S TRAINING ...... 35 5. LIFE AS USTAD HIMSELF ...... 46 6. KHAN SAHEB’S REMINISCENCES ...... 53 7. KHAN SAHEB AS MUSICIAN AND COMPOSER ...... 61 8. KHAN SAHEB'S HUMAN SIDE ...... 71 EPILOGUE ...... 75 GLOSSARY ...... 76 APPENDIX 1 ...... 79 APPENDIX 2 ...... 80 APPENDIX 3 ...... 81 AUTHOR’S NOTE

C. C. COULTON (1780-1832), an English clergyman and epigrammatic writer, has remarked : “There are three difficulties in authorship – to write anything worth publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and to get sensible men to read it.” The author of this biography has happily and fortunately crossed the first two hurdles. As for the third, being an incorrigible optimist, he hopes for the best.

Ustad Khadim Husain Khan is not merely a living legend but also a live phenomenon. He is, to the best of the author’s knowledge, among the last of the era of khandani musicians belonging to the near-extinct world of guru shishya parampara – the age-old tradition of a disciple learning at the feet of the master in total servitude.

There is about him an Arcadian simplicity that stuns those who come into close contact with him. He is a fierce abstainer and a non-smoker. He does not even chew paan or tobacco, the two “accepted companions” of a majority of musicians. He has only one bad habit and that is that he has no bad habits ! His love for and devotion to classical music is such that one can safely proclaim from rooftops that “here’s a man born for music, lives for music and will die for music.”

Khan Saheb receiving Sangeet Natak Akademi award from President N. Sanjiva Reddy, New Delhi, March 1980

In a world where cheap publicity has become the norm of popularity, Khadim Husain Khan is not only an anachronism but a total misfit. A man who has loathed, detested and shunned publicity, he lives in an unrecognised world of recognised and uninhibitedly admiring lovers of music. This “gem of purest ray serene” happily vegetates in "the dark unfathomed caves" of sincere dedication and unalloyed devotion to music, blissfully unmindful of the honours like Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan, etc. that should have come his way long, long ago but have not. Only last year was the ustad honoured with three awards of distinction. The first was from the Maharashtra Government for his outstanding contribution to and services rendered in the cause of classical music in the State. Such an award to a musician was instituted for the first time only last year and the Government’s choice could not have fallen on any one more deserving than the ustad to be its first recipient. The second award came to him from the Sangeet Natak Akademi of New Delhi, a distinction that should have been conferred on him a long time ago. But as the frequently used cliché goes : “Better late than never.” The third was an award from ITC’s Sangeet Research Academy in recognition of his outstanding contribution to classical music.

Khan Saheb receiving ITC-Sangeet Research Academy award from Shri Vasant Sathe, Minister for Information and Broadcasting New Delhi, March 1980

Circumstances compelled Khadim Husain Khan to resort to vidya daan as a steady source of income at a time when he was at the zenith of his performing ability. Consequently, he was not quite able to make a “big hit” as a concert performer. But he basks in the sunshine of supreme happiness that he has a plenitude of shagirds and has carried the message and melody of music to innumerable homes. There are any number of musicians today who claim to be or are called Ustads ; but among the very few who, by word and deed, merit to be so called is Khadim Husain Khan. Vidya daan has been his mission of life and, to that sacred mission, he has gifted away his talent, genius and knowledge ungrudgingly and unsparingly.

Khan Saheb has reached 75 this year. In this platinum year of his age, this biography of his, the author hopes, would be a humble but befitting tribute to his immeasurable and invaluable contribution to Hindustani classical music.

This book is being brought out by “Sajan Milap”, a small but enthusiastic organisation started by a select group of Khan Saheb’s ardent admirers and disciples. It is dedicated totally to serve the cause, encouragement and propagation of traditional music. The choice of the name for the organisation is obvious from the fact that Khan Saheb’s nom de plume is “Sajan Piya”. This book, it is hoped, will be a forerunner of a series of books planned for publication by Sajan Milap on great musicians and their outstanding gayakis.

The chapters on the Agra and Atrauli gharanas have been compiled from available references and details gathered from several musicians, including Khan Saheb himself. The maximum information came from Yunus Husain Khan, a khalifa of the Agra gharana, who has delved deep into the history, origin and evolution of his khandan and gharanas. In fact, it is the invaluable and informative family tree of the Agra gharana, produced by Yunusbhai on the occasion of Khan Saheb’s felicitation in 1970, that first kindled the author’s interest to go into the history of the Agra gharana.

Some of the innumerable old references consulted by Yunusbhai in his mammoth endeavour have been mentioned in the second chapter of this book. Yunusbhai’s work forms almost the very basis for the details given in the second and third chapters on the Agra and Atrauli gharanas. To him the author owes a deep sense of gratitude.

The author has no hesitation in confessing his ignorance of Persian, Urdu and Sanskrit in which authentic works of reference on music and musicians are available. Even his knowledge of Hindi is somewhat limited and this handicap again has precluded him from consulting authoritative references in classical Hindi. The two main volumes consulted by the author for the history of gharanas, apart from prolonged and stimulating discussions with several musicians and musicologists, are "संगीतजो का संसरन" by Vilayat Husain Khan and "आगरा घराना" by Prof. R C Mehta.

Many others like "संगीत िवशारद" by Sangeet Karyalaya, Hathras (U.P.), Bhatkhande’s volumes, etc., were also consulted. While these have been of help to the author in enriching his knowledge of music, they provided little authentic information on the history and evolution of gharanas in general and the Agra- Atrauli gharanas in particular.

The only book in English that the author came across was “Indian Musical Traditions” by Vamanrao Deshpande. This book too did not make the author any wiser on the history and evolution of any of the gharanas.

In the course of his search for details of the Agra and Atrauli gharanas and their exponents of yesteryear, the author has come across several pieces of wholly contradictory information. There are family trees, as in "संगीत िवशारद" of Hathras, in which musicians known to belong to periods well-separated by a century are shown as contemporaries. The author has laboured a good deal to verify carefully the various details before leaping to a conclusion. In several cases, however, he has had no option but to make logical deductions or calculated judgements. He takes refuge in the fact that this book is a biography of Khadim Husain Khan and not a treatise on the Agra and Atrauli gharanas.

The author has no intention of provoking a feud or controversy amongst the admirers of various gharanas. It is true that he has an unqualified admiration for the Agra-Atrauli gharana. But he is neither a performing artiste nor an expert musicologist and is willing to be educated about the distinguishing differences of the various gharanas. If an inordinate bias for the Agra-Atrauli gharana is his weakness, he is open to correction. The comments on and the references made to the various gharanas and their gayakis are only incidental and not contemptuous or vindictive or intended to belittle those who have made a mark in the respective gharanas they follow.

The author is indebted to many for the help and knowledge that inspired him to venture on a task that was smouldering within himself. The first and foremost in the list comes none other than Khan Saheb himself, who made him intellectually, emotionally, aesthetically and feelingly aware of the “still, sad music of humanity.” From him did the author learn what Shelley meant when he said, “I fall on a bed of thorns, I bleed” and that “our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.” When the author heard the ustad do bol alap of the Malkauns cheeza "बलमा रे जानी न पीर" one day, he realized what the poet Fitzgerald meant when he wept : “We are born in others’ pain, we die in our own”. Once Khan Saheb sang a rare morning melody Anand Bhairav and the author was so deeply moved that he understood that “the fairest things have fleetest end, but their scent survives their close”. Khan Saheb’s Anand Bhairav “haunts” the author to this day. The author’s gratitude to Khan Saheb knows no bounds.

To Yunus Husain Khan, the author expresses his sincere thanks and gratitude for sparking off the fire of interest in him to delve into the history of the Agra and Atrauli gharanas and for the significant and authoritative information which he freely furnished to the author.

The author’s especial thanks are due to that incredibly knowledgeable music critic, Mohan Nadkarni, alias Gurudev Sharan, who went through this poor effort with the diligence and intelligence of a meticulous scholar. While the author does not claim any musical qualification, his admiration for Mohanji is based on the unquestionable authority and candour with which he comments on a music concert. Himself a Kirana votary by training, he has in him the quality and qualification of the Romantic poets to appreciate with an open mind a T.S. Eliot or W. H. Auden or a Stephen Spender. His writings are characterised by a splendor of artistic appreciation on the one hand and the frank, fearless yet totally unprejudiced criticism on the other. The author is particularly fortunate to have had the benefit of his advice and guidance in his maiden venture.

The entire credit for the lovely line-sketch of Khan Saheb appearing on the cover goes to the inimitable Ravi Paranjape and the cover design and layout to Sharad Sathe, both of whom have done this work at short notice as their tribute to Khan Saheb.

Very special thanks to the author's secretary, Joy Kapadia, who did the voluminous work of neatly typing the manuscript of this book with extreme diligence and sincerity.

To Ahura Printing Press and Mr. Patrao, the author is very grateful for the excellent printing work undertaken by them.

And, finally, to the innumerable friends and well-wishers, who directly and indirectly helped the author in his maiden venture, a very big THANK YOU.

Bombay, 21st January, 1981 N. JAYAVANTH RAO 1. GHARANAS: THEIR ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION

No account on a khandani musician can start without giving a history of his gharana, its characteristics, specialities and peculiarities, or rather, its musicians of yesteryear. This biography on Ustad Khadim Husain Khan must therefore necessarily begin with a narration of the origin and evolution of the Agra-Atrauli gharana, of which he is today’s greatest living exponent. Many musicians and musicologists have written books on this and other gharanas. Therefore, the historical background given will generally relate, directly and indirectly, to Ustad Khadim Husain Khan, his main guru Ustad Kallan Khan, his family and khandan and his delightful gayaki.

A layman who reads the story of any great musician will have to know about his family and ancestors ; but he will find it more interesting if the book traces briefly the origin of the basic gharana system itself, to get an idea of the evolution of classical music to its present form. Therefore, the opening chapter of this book is devoted to the origin and evolution of banis and gharanas in general.

The system of Hindustani classical music, as we know it today, originated from distinct ancient vogues known as banis. Of course, music existed long, long before that and has been there from the Vedic times. To have a glimpse into the origin of Hindustani classical music of today, it is sufficient to start from the time banis came into existence.

Opinion is divided on the exact origin of banis. It is, however, generally believed that banis were founded by some highly learned and enlightened souls like the rishis and may have had their origin in about the 10/11th century A.D. before Muslim rule was firmly established in India.

That was the pre-dhrupad era when music was mainly religious and was sung in the form of prabandhas. The banis continued to exist for quite a long period of about 700 years. It is not clear how, in the initial period, the various banis were identified or distinguished. Bani is a derivative of the word vani, which means voice, and it is generally accepted that banis were differentiated with respect to the application of the voice and the specialities of voice production. Thus, some banis were noted for the sweetness of voice and others for full-throated and forceful voices.

It was at the beginning of the “Golden Century” of classical music (1550-1650 A.D.) that banis got their names as we know them today. A Farsi book by Hakim Mohammed Karam Imam called “Ma'adnul Mousiqi” states that during Akbar’s time these banis came to be called Gobarhar bani, Khandhar bani, Dagur bani and Nauhar bani, being the names of the places where the leading bani musicians at that time hailed from.

According to many, the four banis followed the alap, dhrupad and dhamar styles during Akbar’s time, but each specialising in certain aspects of the basic style. By then, of course, the precursor of the khayal style was also in existence in the form of “Khusrui Mousiqi”, named after its legendary founder, Hazrat Amir Khusro (13th century). Amir Khusro is believed to be the originator not only of the khayal but also the tarana style of vocal music and composer of a number of ragas, including a fundamental one of today’s Hindustani music system, namely, Yaman or Eman. It is not clear, however, if any of the four banis named above were following the “Khusrui Mousiqi” during Akbar’s time, and if so which.

Although Amir Khusro was supposed to have been responsible for the introduction of the rudiments of the khayal style in classical music, the credit for popularising the khayal is generally given to Niyamat Khan ‘Sadarang’ and his son Firoz Khan ‘Adarang’ during Mohammed Shah Rangila’s period (18th century). Some say that khayal owes its popularity, if not its origin, to Sultan Husain Sharqi, the King of Jaunpur in the 15th century and composer of several ragas, the main one being Jaunpuri, named after his kingdom. The word “Gharana” can be loosely translated in English as a ‘house’ or ‘school’ of music belonging to a town or village, whereas the word “Bani” can only be understood as a ‘tradition’ or ‘system’ in music. Thus bani obviously covers a much wider range of musicians than the gharana.

None of the books or ustads and pandits consulted by the author have been able to state clearly when the four banis changed into the numerous gharanas, and under what circumstances. Banis continued to exist even after Akbar’s period through Jehangir’s reign and up to the time of Shahjahan. At the same time, none of the old gharana ustads or pandits have been able to trace their musicians prior to the 18th century, and all the legendary musicians known today belonged to banis ; for example, Swami Haridas and Tansen belonged to the Gobarhar bani, while Nayak Gopal and Haji Sujan Khan belonged to the Nauhar bani.

Based on these and several other considerations, the author has deduced that the transition from banis to gharanas started during Aurangazeb’s reign (latter half of 17th century), when this music-hating bigoted emperor banished music and musicians from his domain. The numerous talented musicians of his court, as also those who had migrated to Delhi for royal patronage, must have then gone back to the respective places where they originally hailed from or to that town or village where they felt they could make the best use of their talents. It is thus that musicians came to settle down and to be identified with numerous places like Agra, Atrauli, Fatehpur, Fatehpur Sikri, Gwalior, Jaipur, Khurja, Kirana, Mathura, Patiala, Rampur, Saharanpur, Sahaswan, Sikandrabad, etc. Those who did belong to Delhi and had no place to go, would have remained there and hoped for better times ahead. They would all have, however, secretly practiced their art and handed it to their khandan.

No doubt, there would have been many musicians in all these places from the beginning itself who practiced, performed and taught their art. However, after Aurangazeb banished music from his durbar and the best of musicians went to live in the various towns and villages, the art in all these places would have stabilised and blossomed forth. Thereafter, that is, from about late 17th century or early 18th century, gharanas would have come into being with the names of the places mentioned above as their distinguishing suffixes, because the talented musicians started their ‘houses’ or ‘schools’ of music in the various places they settled in.

In the 18th and 19th centuries and even in the early part of this century, the gharanas named above and more existed in their full splendour and glory. It is indeed a great pity that only about a half or less of these gharanas exist today, the rest of them being extinct.

It is possible to trace from which banis some of the gharanas were derived. It may also be interesting to mention some instances. The Nauhar bani changed mainly into the Agra gharana but had offshoots like the Delhi gharana (of “Tanras Khan” fame), the Khurja gharana and one branch of the Atrauli gharana (of which Puttan Khan was famous). The Gobarhar bani, the broadest of them all, appears to have changed mainly into the vocal Gwalior gharana and the instrumental Seniya gharana with offshoots like the Rampur and Sahaswan gharanas, and another branch of the Atrauli gharana (of “Daras Piya” fame). The distinguished Sikandrabad gharana is claimed by some to be a derivative of the Gobarhar bani, while others claim that it was born from the Khandhar bani. This Sikandrabad is in Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh and should not be confused with Secunderabad of Andhra Pradesh or Sikandra near Agra. Also, the Sikandrabad gharana came to be known popularly as the Rangila gharana after its outstanding exponent Ramzan Khan ‘Rangile’ or just “Miya Rangile”. This Sikandrabad or Rangila gharana became extinct after the death of its last two distinguished exponents, Kudratulla Khan and Muzaffar Khan in the 1920’s and 1930’s respectively. The Agra gharana maestro, Faiyaz Khan, was related to the Rangila gharana by blood but not musically. The Kirana gharana of today also claims to be an offshoot of the Gobarhar bani. The Dagur bani changed mainly into the Saharanpur gharana of the learned “Pandit” Behram Khan, while some Dagur bani musicians, also settled in Atrauli to start yet another branch there. It is of interest that some of the more recent exponents of the Saharanpur gharana call themselves “Dagar” and thus rightly link themselves to their original distinguished bani. All other gharanas, including the instrumental ones too owe their origin to one or more of the original banis.

Undoubtedly, the current gharanas have not maintained their ancient styles derived directly from the original banis. Indeed, it is difficult to identify the characteristics of the original banis today except possibly in very general terms. To some extent the Dagars, who are the exponents of the earlier Saharanpur gharana, claim that they generally sing the same basic style today as their Dagur bani ancestors did. However, the evolution of music is a continuous process and as time passes it necessarily goes through some changes to suit the changing environment and taste of listeners.

The changes that took place in the gharanas must be mentioned briefly. After Aurangazeb, royal patronage to music started again in the Mughal court and flourished under emperors like Mohammed Shah Rangila. However, by then, the Mughal empire itself had started to decay. Talented musicians of the various gharanas then looked for, and indeed abundantly received, patronage from the Hindu kings and nawabs. Among them, the Maharajas of Alwar, Baroda, Gwalior, Jaipur, Mysore and some other places, as well as the nawabs of Hyderabad, Lucknow, Rampur, etc. did yeomen’s service in the cause of music by sheltering the very cream of musicians in their courts and looking after all their wants and needs.

Thus started the second glorious era of music and musicians. The Maharajas and nawabs were great lovers of music and they appreciated the beauties and differences in the singing styles of the various gharanas. Therefore, they directly encouraged their protégés to preserve and propagate the distinct styles of their respective gharanas. This continued for some time. However, best music was available only to the privileged few and the common man could hear it only when the Maharajas or nawabs condescended to let the musicians sing in public. Initially, such occasions were rare but from the turn of the 20th century, the lay people got to hear classical music more frequently. Then started the era of music going to the common man. When royal patronage declined, the musicians turned more and more to the public. Credit must be given to V. N. Bhatkhande and other great visionaries for bringing classical music to the public through books, while others like Vishnu Digambar Paluskar, Faiyaz Khan, Abdul Karim Khan and Ghulam Ali Khan reached music to the masses through public concerts.

Simultaneously, travel was becoming easier with the introduction of the railways, etc. and ustads started coming into close contact with one another frequently. It then became fairly common for students and musicians of one gharana to learn and acquire cheezas as well as general musical training under distinguished ustads of other gharanas. With this started the process of interconnexion and blending of the various gharana characteristics.

How the original Agra gharana of the Nauhar bani first came under the influence of the Gwalior gharana and then merged with the Gobarhari branch of the Atrauli gharana will be clear from the next chapter which describes the lives of the exponents of the Agra gharana. In other gharanas, too, such intermingling became fairly common. A typical example would be the case of Alladiya Khan, originally from the Daguri branch of the Atrauli gharana but today identified as the Jaipur gharana or more correctly, the Jaipur (Atrauli) gharana. It is well known that Alladiya Khan got most of his talim in the dhrupad gayaki from his uncle ; yet the gayaki that is identified with the maestro and his disciples today is a beautiful taan-pradhan khayal style and this is despite the fact that such taans are taboo in traditional dhrupad singing. There are many such examples which are well known and need not be repeated here.

The net result of all this was that the typical characteristics of the original banis have been lost to us forever. Even among the various gharanas today, blendings and interconnexions have already taken place. Yet one can say that there are still a few individualities, peculiarities and specialities in each of the gharana styles in vogue. What is fast vanishing today is the number of musicians and teachers competent enough to help in keeping the traditions of gharanas alive. Even though it is nearly too late, there is still a small chance that the gharana traditions can be preserved for posterity. It is up to the present generation to rise to the occasion and realise the importance of preserving our ancient cultural heritage, so lovingly and carefully handed down to us by previous generations, by recognising the few really knowledgeable ustads and pandits of today and taking suitable steps to preserve at least the current gharanas in as pure a form as practically possible now. Credit must be given to the Sangeet Research Academy of Calcutta for the positive work that they have undertaken in this direction.

The present younger musicians have the great urge to become famous overnight and are, therefore, anxious to imbibe only those traits of every gharana that are likely to appeal to the masses and galleries. Tayyari is today preferred to methodical raga vistar, superfast and mostly meaningless taans take total precedence over purity of raga and an overabundance of the once-taboo sargams is becoming the order of the day – all for creating instant appeal to the gimmick-loving masses. What the great ustads of old learnt in 10 to 15 years at the rate of 8 to 12 hours a day, a young aspirant of today hopes to learn in a couple of years at the rate of three hours per week ! The only riyaz done is in the direction of increasing the speed of one’s taans and little attention is given to the purity of ragas, methodical raga delineation and other aesthetics. Unfortunately, many music teachers today also have limited knowledge of the musical vidya and aesthetics since they themselves learnt music in the 3-hours-a-week-for-two years fashion. Therefore, such teachers, not being able to teach traditional music too well, automatically tend to encourage tayyari in their students. In today’s jet age one cannot however blame them altogether. School, college and university education today are all-important to make a reasonable living ; therefore music is generally only a hobby with most people and three hours a week is about the maximum time available for music.

All this indicates that gharana traditions and genuine musical vidya are very much on the wane – on the way to slow but sure extinction. However, there are still a few old-world musicians living today and Khadim Husain Khan, whose vidya is almost an ocean, is probably the greatest of them all, for he has received long, arduous talim from some of the all-time greats of the century. It is up to today’s music students to get the maximum out of great ustads like him and other learned pandits and preserve the great heritage for, with their departure, the glorious era of khandani musicians will have come to an end forever. 2. AGRA GHARANA AND ITS USTADS

The original Agra gharana of the 18th century, as mentioned earlier, was derived from the Nauhar bani. It first got considerably blended with the Gwalior gharana and then merged with the Gobarhari branch of the Atrauli gharana. How this happened is something that will be clear if one goes through the musical lives of the ustads of this gharana. This is the topic of this chapter. A full chapter has been devoted to the Agra gharana because Khadim Husain Khan was trained mainly in the Agra style, even though he was born in the Atrauli khandan. In fact, Khadim Husain Khan is one of the direct causes of the merger of the two gharanas.

The Agra gharana and its predecessor, the Nauhar bani, have indeed had a galaxy of distinguished scholars, musicians and ustads and each of them has contributed to the evolution of the gharana to a larger or smaller extent.

There is much uncertainty about the exact origin of the banis and this is as much the case with the Nauhar bani as it is with the other three. It seems reasonable, however, to assume that Nayak Gopal, a very highly learned scholar and musician of the 13th century A.D., was either the founder or is among the earliest known musicians of the tradition or the system of music that came to be called, more than two centuries after it was founded, the Nauhar bani.

In the course of his search for some details on Nayak Gopal, the author has come across much conflicting information – even a suggestion that there were two Nayak Gopals (or Gopal Nayaks) at different periods of time. It will be interesting to narrate some details that the author has come across.

The generally accepted fact is that Nayak Gopal was the chief musician in the court of the ruler of Devgiri, later called Daulatabad, in the South (Here the term ‘South’ only means south of the Vindhya ranges). Nayak Gopal was believed to be a devout and saintly Saraswat Brahmin well versed not only in the art and science of music but also in the Vedas and other sacred texts.

This was in the latter half of the 13th century when Allauddin Khilji was the ruler in Delhi and Hazrat Amir Khusro was attached to the court of the Khilji. When Allauddin Khilji’s army declared war on and defeated the Devgiri State, Amir Khusro had accompanied the invading troops with the specific intention of meeting Nayak Gopal, about whom Khusro had heard so much. Although the Devgiri ruler was defeated and Nayak Gopal was at the mercy of Khusro, the latter challenged Nayak Gopal to a competition or discussion on music. Khusro set the condition that if Nayak Gopal won, he would be free ; but if he lost, he would have to leave Devgiri and accompany Khusro to Delhi. The competition and discussion went on for days because both were masters of the subject. However, the genius that he was, Khusro ultimately succeeded and Nayak Gopal had to concede defeat. Thus it was that Nayak Gopal went to live in Delhi and started a distinct musical system there which was till then confined to the South. It was this system that came to be identified later as the Nauhar bani. Up to this point one can state that the details corroborate reasonably with history.

One story heard by the author is that of the well-known ‘heat-producing’ raga Deepak, which is separately attributed to Nayak Gopal, Haji Sujan Khan (a descendant of Nayak Gopal himself) and, of course, the great Tansen. In each case the emperor concerned is made to request the musician to sing the raga by some jealous courtiers. The musician takes it as a challenge, sits in the cool waters of the Jamuna and starts singing Deepak.

The story attributed to Nayak Gopal says that the river water soon starts boiling and dries up all round the musician, simultaneously the heat and fire generated within himself by the powerful effects of Deepak scorches the musician and very soon he is consumed by the flames and reduced to ashes. The emperor spends the rest of his life regretting and repenting his rash request to the learned Nayak Gopal. There is also a hint in the story that it was Amir Khusro himself who instigated the emperor because he found that the emperor was getting a little too fond of Nayak Gopal !

In the version attributed to Haji Sujan Khan unlit lamps are placed all round him. The water starts boiling as he sings Deepak but just before it becomes totally unbearable to the musician, the lamps light themselves and the ordeal is over. Emperor Akbar is so pleased that he confers on the Haji the title of “Deepak Jyot”. There is a dhrupad sung occasionally and attributed to Haji Sujan Khan where the words “Deepak Jyot” appear.

In Tansen’s version too, it is well known that he easily manages to light the lamps with the effect of Deepak but there is severe agony within him due to the immense heat generated. This agony could only be extinguished by the singing of raga Megh Malhar by the twin sisters Tana and Riri of Vadnagar, Gujarat.

Such stories have to be accepted with more than a pinch of salt. At the same time, it certainly cannot be denied that sound in general and music in particular can produce – and indeed have produced – certain effects which cannot be explained logically or scientifically. The simplest examples are the improved growth of plants in a musical environment, sureel music producing peace at heart and even bringing tears to one’s eyes, shattering of glass due to certain sounds, etc. All these are accomplished and proven facts.

Vilayat Husain Khan’s book mentions an incident relating to a Nayak Gopal. This pertains to Akbar’s period and has probably given rise to the suggestion that there were two Nayak Gopals. Curiously enough, Vilayat Husain Khan does not at all refer to a Nayak Gopal in Allauddin Khilji’s time even though that is the accepted fact.

The story goes that Nayak Gopal, a scholar of music from the South, came to the court of Akbar. There he had a long discussion on various aspects of contemporary music with Nayak Baiju, the leading musicologist of Akbar’s court. The discussion went on for days and, at the end of it, Nayak Baiju wanted to impress his scholarship on Akbar, Nayak Gopal and the others gathered there. So he composed, on the spot, a dhrupad and that too in a new raga made up of six current ragas which Nayak Baiju called “Shat” (meaning six). The opening words of this dhrupad are "िवदाधर गुिनयन सो" and this celebrated composition is sung even today by the exponents of the Agra gharana and some others. However the name of the raga has become “Khat” and it is sung as a khayal in jhaptaal. The existence of the dhrupad is thus indeed a fact but the so-called discussion in Akbar’s court raises much doubt and sounds too much like the discussion that was known to have taken place between Nayak Gopal and Amir Khusro at Devgiri in the 13th century. If a discussion did take place in Akbar’s court, it would have been between Nayak Baiju and some other music scholar, not Nayak Gopal – at any rate not the Nayak Gopal of Devgiri identified with the Nauhar bani.

Nayak Gopal had four disciples by the names of Alakh Das, Malukh Das, Khalak Das and Lohang Das. All of them were “Jata Dhaari Gosains” and very learned scholars of the musical vidya. It is known that among Alakh Das’s descendants was born a Sujan Das ‘Nauhar’ (or Sujan Singh ‘Nauhar’) who lived in Akbar’s period. The gap between Alakh Das’s period and Sujan Das’s period is roughly 150 years ; so they must have been about five generations removed.

Allauddin Khilji’s rule, during which Nayak Gopal came from Devgiri to live in Delhi, ended in 1321. That was roughly the time when Alakh Das may have been born. Very little is known about the musical happenings in North India from then on till about the end of the 15th century, except for Jaunpur’s Sultan Husain Sharqi. One of the reasons for this is almost certainly the misadventure of Mohammed Bin Tughlak, who shifted his capital including its entire population – musicians and the rest – from Delhi to Daulatabad (Nayak Gopal’s hometown, earlier called Devgiri) and two years later back again to Delhi. In that terrible period many people died, thousands and thousands were rendered penniless and homeless, towns were deserted and famine broke out. In such circumstances naturally music and musicians were virtually forgotten. Then came a brief respite when Firoz Shah Tughlak ascended the throne as he was also a lover of all the arts and music in particular. However, that was only temporary, because Timor’s invasion of India at the end of the 14th century created havoc all over the North of the country.

Then came a century of instability, mainly as an aftermath of the invasion, when there were feeble rulers all over and independent kingdoms started quarrelling and fighting among themselves very often. Art and music were again given the back seat. Only in the beginning of the 16th century did music start getting some importance with the sovereigns, first the Lodis and then the Mughals. It really started blossoming forth in Akbar’s period from 1556. It is during that period that the name of Sujan Das appears.

There is a belief that one Nayak Dhondu was the founder of the Nauhar bani and the author is inclined to think that he may have been born in Alakh Das’s family, a couple of generations before Sujan Das, though there is no proof for this. Nayak Dhondu may have made a significant contribution to the evolution of the bani or rejuvenated it from its dormancy ; hence the belief that he was the founder.

A chart showing the family tree of the Agra gharana and its predecessor, the Nauhar bani, given in an appendix at the end of the book, is an important part of this chapter describing the history of the gharanas. The full credit for the preparation of this chart goes to Yunus Husain Khan, the worthy son of Vilayat Husain Khan. Yunusbhai has taken great pains to compile the chart from several old references like “Raga Darpan” of Fakirullah, the Farsi translation of Maharaja Mansingh’s celebrated treatise “Mana Kutuhala”, Abul Fazl’s “Aine Akbari”, Hakim Mohammed Karam Imam’s “Ma'adnul Mousiqi" and many other sources including his discussions with the very senior members of his distinguished family. Yunusbhai’s valuable chart has been reproduced in the book with only minor additions or alterations.

Alakh Das’s descendant Sujan Das ‘Nauhar’ was a highly accomplished musician who joined the court of Akbar. He was the first musician of the Nauhar bani to take to Islam and his Muslim name was Sujan Khan. Later, he performed the Haj, either with the permission of Akbar or, more probably, at his bidding, and came to be known as Haji Sujan Khan, by which name he is highly revered by every musician of the Agra gharana. The story of Haji Sujan Khan getting the title of “Deepak Jyot” from Akbar has been given earlier.

During his Haj trip, he visited Mecca and Madina and was so deeply impressed and moved by these holy places that he was inspired to compose the celebrated and outstanding dhrupad in the raga Jog with the opening words "पथम मान अलाह". All khandani ustads of the Agra gharana learn this dhrupad with great reverence and devotion. However, it is another beautiful composition of Haji Sujan Khan "अलाह हो अलाह" in the raga Bhairav that is taught to all disciples of the khandan at the start of their talim.

Haji Sujan Khan and his brother Bichitr Khan were both great musicians and were called “Nauhar Rajputs”. Both were attached to the court of Akbar and were contemporaries of Tansen. The author has come across a story that Tansen once heard young Sujan Das ‘Nauhar’ singing and was so pleased with his outstanding musical talents that he made him his son-in-law, converted him to Islam and sent him for the Haj. The book “Sangeet Visharad” published at Hathras (U.P.) which claims to be a text-book for the intermediate and degree course students of music, also states that Haji Sujan Khan was the son-in-law of Tansen. However, most ustads and knowledgeable musicologists as well as the reference volumes consulted by the author do not seem to give any credence to this story or statement. The accepted fact is that Haji Sujan Khan and his brother Bichitr Khan were contemporaries of Tansen in Akbar’s court.

It is believed that Haji Sujan Khan was a very devout and saintly person and was almost like a yogi or rishi, and lived up to the age of nearly 125 years. Towards the end of Akbar’s long reign, Haji Sujan Khan’s son, Surgyan Khan, also a distinguished musician, scholar and a “Nauhar Rajput”, became a court musician. The khandan of the Nauhar bani was carried down through Surgyan Khan.

Akbar was very fond of Haji Sujan Khan and presented the Haji with a village called Gondpur, near Delhi. It is said that Surgyan Khan and his descendants went to live there after the death of Akbar.

Haji Sujan Khan also had a daughter, much younger than Surgyan Khan, and it is said that she was married to a direct descendant of Hazrat Amir Khusro. To her was born a great musician by name Wazir Khan ‘Nauhar’ who was an accomplished scholar in the system of music known as “Khusrui Mousiqi” (considered to be the precursor of today’s khayal). Wazir Khan’s sons were Hasan Khan ‘Nauhar’ and Saiyad Khan ‘Nauhar’, both nipuns (experts) in the “Khusrui Mousiqi”. They lived in the early part of Aurangazeb’s reign. It is a matter of interest that one of these two was the forefather of Faiz Mohammed Khan Barodawale, the first guru of the great Agra gharana musician Bhaskarbuva Bakhale. Faiz Mohammed Khan was also the father-in-law of Faiyaz Khan.

Surgyan Khan’s son, Qader Shah, towards the end of Jehangir’s reign, and grandson, Hyder Shah, in the latter part of Shahjahan’s reign, lived in the Gondpur village given to Haji Saheb by Akbar, even though it is said that they were informally attached to the Mughal court. They were, therefore, known as ‘Gondpuriye’ but were also called ‘Jogi Bachhe’, being the direct descendants of the learned and devout Haji Sujan Khan. The ragas Gondgiri, Gondni Todi and Gondgiri Bahar, sung by the Agra gharana ustads, were probably composed by them or later by their descendants in memory of the place that gave them shelter for quite a few generations.

Khadim Husain Khan was told by his grandmother Jasiya Begum that, even though the more talented musicians of the gharana migrated to Agra, many direct descendants of the khandan lived in Gondpur till 1857, in which year that place came under the heavy artillery attack of the British (during the so-called Sepoy Mutiny). The members of the family hastily left Gondpur at that time to save their lives carrying only their very essential belongings. They had no option but to leave behind almost all their heavier possessions, including rare and valuable heirlooms like copper plates, old books and manuscripts, mana patras, etc. Regrettably, those items have never been heard of since. It is not even known whether someone else got hold of them later or they were all destroyed in the attacks.

Hyder Shah Gondpuriye’s son was Dayam Khan ‘Nauhar’ in the period of Aurangazeb. He was popularly known as ‘Miya Saras Rang’. He was a great ustad and is known to have taught a lot of shagirds both from within and outside the khandan. He was also a great scholar-composer and many of his cheezas are sung by musicians of today. Among the large number of his compositions, the very popular ones are in the ragas Chhayanat and Paraj with the opening words "नेवर की झनकार" and "लाल आए" respectively, which are sung widely by musicians of the Agra gharana and others too.

Miya Saras Rang was probably among the large number of talented musicians who left Delhi and its surroundings (in his case Gondpur) when Aurangazeb banished music and musicians. That is when he would have made Agra his home, the place that he found most suitable to pursue his art. It would also appear that Miya Saras Rang was the last musician of the khandan to have had the title "Nauhar" added to his name. It can, therefore, be deduced that Nauhar bani more or less ended and the khandan came to be called the Agra gharana during the time of Miya Saras Rang. Saras Rang, therefore, occupies a pre-eminent position in the evolution of the Agra gharana.

Saras Rang had a son by name Qayam Khan. He too, was an accomplished musician and popularly known as Miya Sham Rang. He became a famous exponent of the Agra gharana during the period of Mohammed Shah Rangila, when classical music got a much needed boost after Aurangazeb’s vain attempts to obliterate it from his empire. The ustads of the Agra gharana have the same reverence for Miya Sham Rang as they have for Miya Saras Rang. As far as compositions are concerned, while Saras Rang composed several, the only known one attributed to Sham Rang is a beautiful cheeza in a rare but old raga called Birju-ka-Malhar. Its opening words are "आए बदरा कारे कारे". This raga and composition are not very well known but Khadim Husain Khan is among the few ustads who knows them.

Although Miya Sham Rang lived in the period of Mohammed Shah Rangila, it is unlikely that he was attached to the Mughal court because the names that are associated with the emperor are those of the legendary musicians Sadarang and Adarang. It is almost certain, however, that Sham Rang was their contemporary in the 18th century.

Sham Rang had four sons called Junghu Khan, Soosu Khan, Gulab Khan and Khudabaksh. The youngest son Ghagge Khudabaksh (1790-1880) – the reason for the odd prefix is given later – is indeed the father of the Agra gayaki as we know it today. It would appear from Prof. Mehta’s book and elsewhere that, up to the time of Ghagge Khudabaksh, the gayaki of the khandan was exclusively alap-dhrupad-dhamar. However, the existence of compositions like "नेवर की झनकार" in Chhayanat and "लाल आए" in Paraj by Saras Rang and "आए बदरा कारे कारे" in Birju-ka-Malhar attributed to Sham Rang, which are distinct khayals, raises doubts on this issue. It is possible that these and other similar khayal-like compositions of the pre-Ghagge Khudabaksh period started off as dhrupads and were later adapted to khayals. Whatever be the fact, there is no doubt that the Agra gayaki of those days had a preponderance of the alap-dhrupad-dhamar styles.

Young Khudabaksh was born with a flaw in his voice which made it sound unusually gruff. Sham Rang trained all the four sons in the khandan’s gayaki in the traditional style with great devotion. All the four picked up the gayaki very well but whereas the first three sons became excellent performers soon enough, young Khudabaksh’s gruff voice made it very difficult for him to sing properly, even though he had picked up the gayaki thoroughly. The nickname “Ghagge” (meaning gruff) was soon prefixed and he became the laughing stock of his distinguished family.

Poor Khudabaksh was unable to bear the constant taunts of his elder brothers and others in the family and, one hapless day, he ran away from home. Since the gayaki and music were in his blood he was determined to become a good musician at any cost. His young mind (he was then in his teens) reasoned that if his voice was unsuitable for the dhrupad-oriented gayaki of his own khandan, he could possibly do better if he tried to learn the khayal-oriented gayaki from another ustad. He had heard from his elders that Natthan Peerbaksh Gwaliorwale was one of the foremost exponents of the khayal style at that time. Therefore Khudabaksh set out on foot for Gwalior to meet the great ustad. He crossed the dacoit-infested Chambal Valley ravines at grave risk to his life and eventually reached Gwalior. There he went straight to Natthan Peerbaksh, fell at his feet and explained his sad plight. He begged the ustad to accept him as a disciple and teach him the khayal gayaki. Natthan Peerbaksh was highly impressed by the courage and determination of the teenager when he heard the full story and gladly accepted him as a disciple then and there. Natthan Peerbaksh had himself learnt many dhrupads at one time from an Agra gharana ustad (most probably Miya Saras Rang). It is also understood that Natthan Peerbaksh composed a number of beautiful khayals based on the dhrupads and dhamars that he acquired from the Agra gharana. So it made the ustad very happy to be of assistance to an unfortunate descendant of that great khandan.

Once the ustad heard the young disciple sing, he knew only too well that unless the gruffness in the voice was removed, Khudabaksh would not be able to sing properly whether it was khayal, dhrupad or any other style. Therefore, with great determination and fervent prayers to God, he started the youngster on intense swar-riyaz. Khudabaksh was asked to play just one string of the tanpura (basic shadja only) and reproduce that note as clearly as possible. It is said that Khudabaksh took three months at the rate of about ten hours a day to get the first note clear and right. Then he was asked to go to the next higher note (komal rishabh) for another month or two and so on and so forth till he got all the twelve notes of one octave right as well as clear and ringing. Slowly, but surely, the gruffness began to vanish and his voice started becoming clearer. Thereafter his notes began merging beautifully with the basic notes of the tanpura strings and their harmonics and sub-harmonics. Khudabaksh performed this intense swar-sadhana with the greatest devotion for over two years. In addition, he would perform all the duties that the ustad gave him including serving the master. Slowly and steadily the ustad started teaching Khudabaksh the khayal gayaki in its most colourful form.

In about three years, the gruffness in Khudabaksh’s voice disappeared altogether and it developed such a sweet, melodious and mellow quality that the ustad himself was most pleasantly surprised. Khudabaksh stayed for about twelve years with Natthan Peerbaksh doing great seva and riyaz and receiving intense talim. The ustad was then thoroughly satisfied with Khudabaksh’s accomplishments and gave him permission to go back home to Agra. The ustad himself admitted that he had never heard such a sureel voice before !

By then Ghagge Khudabaksh, in addition to acquiring what came to be accepted as the most sureel voice of his generation and century, had turned into quite a unique musician. He had in him a most beautiful blend of the majestic and methodical alap-dhrupad-dhamar-oriented gayaki of his own khandan and the soulful and melodious khayal-oriented gayaki of Natthan Peerbaksh Gwaliorwale.

When Ghagge Khudabaksh reached home (Agra) and displayed his voice and gayaki, the family’s joy knew no bounds. They could hardly believe that the same Ghagge Khudabaksh now had a voice much more sureel than anyone in the family and his gayaki had acquired a new dimension which was absent in the khandan. He was welcomed home with open arms and suffice it to say that the family decided then and there that the next generation of musicians in the khandan would be trained by Ghagge Khudabaksh in his unique gayaki. Thus started the new Agra gayaki - a harmonious blend of the khayal and dhrupad-dhamar styles.

As desired by the family, Ghaggeji started training Sher Khan, his eldest brother Junghu Khan’s only son, in his new style. Ghaggeji groomed Sher Khan into a fine musician in a few years’ time. However, Ghaggeji also had the urge to travel to various places so that he could display his magnificent gayaki to the several kings and nobles in the country. In fact, he was the first Agra gharana musician to have travelled outside Agra to spread his music. Very soon after completing the training of nephew Sher Khan, he set out on his travels.

Wherever he went and sang, the kings and subjects were wonderstruck at his sureel and beautiful gayaki. It is said that Ghaggeji was so sureel that within minutes of starting to sing he would bring tears to the eyes of his listeners with his intensely melodious and tuneful voice and music. Because of this, people were very afraid to invite Ghaggeji to sing at celebrations like marriages because tears are taboo on such festive occasions ! It is an irony that the prefix Ghagge was never dropped although he had now become the most sureel musician of the century.

When Ghaggeji reached Jaipur, the then Maharaja, Sawai Ram Singh, was so pleased with his soulful music that he immediately appointed him as a durbar musician. It is said that Ghaggeji joining the durbar “filled the one gap that possibly existed” in the distinguished court of Jaipur comprising such legendary musicians as Rajab Ali Khan beenkar Jaipurwale (the Maharaja’s own ustad), Imratsen sitariye Sadruddin Khan Delhiwale, Mubarak Ali Khan Qawwal-Bachhe and others.

Although Ghaggeji was thereafter attached permanently to the Jaipur durbar, he was an itinerant musician and travelled to various places with the Maharaja’s permission and astounded all his listeners with his beautiful gayaki. This, however, gave him very little time to teach anyone rigorously in the traditional guru-shishya parampara and thus Sher Khan, whom he taught for some years before he left Agra, was his only disciple in the true sense of the term. Whenever he found time, he would of course teach his two sons, Ghulam Abbas Khan and Kallan Khan. Others who learnt from him include Alibaksh Khan Bharatpurwale, Munshi Ghulam Husain Atrauliwale, Pandit Shivdeen (Prime Minister of Jaipur durbar) and Pandit Vishwambharnath.

Sher Khan (1805-1882), trained thoroughly and rigorously by Ghagge Khudabaksh, was a great musician and a brilliant performer. True to his name, he was indeed a sher (tiger) of his gharana. He too travelled all over, gave recitals at various durbars and was handsomely rewarded by one and all who heard him.

Since Ghaggeji did not find much time to teach his own two sons, Sher Khan took upon himself the task of training Ghaggeji’s elder son Ghulam Abbas Khan rigorously in the father’s true style. Sher Khan taught Ghulam Abbas Khan with great devotion for several years. Here again, it can be said that Ghulam Abbas Khan was Sher Khan’s only disciple in the true sense of the term.

Sher Khan later came to live in Bombay at the persistent request of some of his prominent disciples. To Sher Khan, therefore, goes the credit of bringing the Agra gharana first to Bombay where he lived for over 15 years teaching a number of keen disciples. He came to Bombay in about 1835-40 and thus Bombay’s association with the Agra gharana is nearly a century and a half old.

Sher Khan spent the last few years of his life in his home town Agra where, it is believed, the legendary and most outstanding lady musician Zohrabai Agrewali got the benefit of Sher Khan’s gayaki to become the ace performer of her time.

As mentioned above, Ghulam Abbas Khan (1825-1934) was the only full-time disciple of Sher Khan. Being Ghaggeji’s eldest son, Ghulam Abbas Khan was also Sher Khan’s khalifa.

Ghulam Abbas Khan, like his father, was among the top musicians of his generation. He too visited various places and highly impressed kings and their subjects by his masterly music. He was highly independent by nature and, with the entire responsibility of bringing up the khandan entrusted to him, he decided not to become a court musician anywhere despite many lucrative offers.

One very notable feature about Ghulam Abbas Khan was his firm belief that a musician’s music will be top class only if his general health and breath control were top class. He was, therefore, very particular about his health and was extremely regular in his food and exercise habits. He took great pains to maintain a strict control over the quality and quantity of food he consumed. He also performed several exercises for achieving tremendous breath control. The result was that he was not only the top musician of his time but he lived for well over a hundred years and was looked upon as the Grand Old Man of his khandan for several years. An ustad who had once heard Ghulam Abbas Khan singing has said that he could sing a taan in one breath for 18 medium-paced avartans. This is almost unbelievable in today’s context and means that he could hold his breath for an incredibly long time. He would indeed have taken great pains to maintain such health and breath control.

Up to the time of Ghulam Abbas Khan, the new Agra gayaki was handed down in its pristine purity and complete form only to one individual of a generation ; that is, Ghaggeji to Sher Khan and Sher Khan to Ghulam Abbas Khan. However, it was Ghulam Abbas Khan who thoroughly trained three of the outstanding greats of the gharana, Kallan Khan, Natthan Khan and (much later) Faiyaz Khan. Each one of them has distinguished himself. What is more, all musicians of the next generation of the Agra gharana were their disciples. These disciples in turn trained numerous others and today there are a large number of followers of the Agra gharana.

It is thus obvious that Ghagge Khudabaksh is the father of today’s Agra gayaki, Sher Khan and Ghulam Abbas Khan its main pillars and the great trio of Kallan Khan, Natthan Khan and Faiyaz Khan constitute the very foundation on which the entire Agra gharana grew and blossomed forth. Kallan Khan (1835-1925) was the younger son of Ghaggeji and his real name was Ghulam Hyder Khan. Being the younger brother, he was the first to be taught by Ghulam Abbas Khan in the traditional style for many years. Kallan Khan is known to have learnt many cheezas from Pandit Vishwambharnath, a senior disciple of Ghaggeji himself. Kallan Khan, like his father Ghaggeji, was appointed durbar musician by the Maharaja of Jaipur and spent most of his life in Jaipur.

It is the unanimous opinion of the khandan that, even though Kallan Khan learnt only a little under the father directly, he was the nearest to Ghaggeji’s style with particular reference to the sureel aspect of the gayaki. Therefore Kallan Khan, like the father, was among the most sureel musicians of his generation and a worthy successor to Ghaggeji in the court of Jaipur.

Kallan Khan was also a brilliant teacher and several budding prodigies of the khandan were entrusted to him for their thorough training. Prominent among them were his son, Tasadduq Husain Khan, grand- nephews Faiyaz Khan, Vilayat Husain Khan and Nanne Khan, grandson Bashir Khan and great grand- nephews Khadim Husain Khan and Anwar Husain Khan. All of them became great ustads and each taught hundreds of disciples. Outside the khandan Kallan Khan’s noted disciples were Gafoor Khan, Nazir Khan Moradabadi, Firdausibai Agrewali and Bibbobai Jaipurwali. It is believed that Zohrabai Agrewali also trained under him for a while.

Natthan Khan (1840-1901) was the only son of Sher Khan and his real name was Nissar Husain Khan. Being the khalifa, Ghulam Abbas Khan taught him with great devotion for several years in Ghaggeji’s inimitable gayaki. It is also understood that Natthan Khan received some training from two well known musicians Ghasit Khan and Khwajabaksh. He also derived benefit by associating himself with Mubarak Ali Khan Qawwal-Bachhe, a contemporary of Ghaggeji.

Natthan Khan was known to be the most outstanding performer of his time and had absolute command over both sur and laya. Both his raga barhat and phirat were equally superb. Most musicians then were known to be experts either in sur and raga-bol vistar like Ghaggeji and Kallan Khan or in phirat and taans like Tanras Khan Delhiwale and Mubarak Ali Khan Qawwal-Bachhe, but usually not both. Natthan Khan was probably the sole outstanding exception. He was such an outstanding musician that the Maharajah of Mysore Krishna Rajendra Wodeyar made him the "Asthaana Gawaiya" (Resident Musician), the first Hindustani musician to be given that position in the Mysore durbar, which was a bastion of Carnatic music then.

Natthan Khan’s main disciples in the khandan were his two elder sons Mohmmed Khan and Abdullah Khan, while outside his khandan his two great disciples were Bablibai and Bhaskerbuva Bakhale.

Some of Kallan Khan’s and Natthan Khan’s disciples were senior to Faiyaz Khan (1881-1950) both in age and stature. However, as the last direct disciple of Ghulam Abbas Khan, his name deserves to be mentioned after those of Kallan Khan and Natthan Khan. Faiyaz Khan was among the most outstanding musicians not only of his gharana but of classical music in general and as a performer, he came next only to the greats, Natthan Khan, Abdullah Khan and Bhaskerbuva Bakhale.

Faiyaz Khan was the only son (and child) of Abbasi Begum, the elder daughter of Ghulam Abbas Khan. His father, Safdar Husain Khan Sikandrabadwale, was an exponent of the Rangila gharana. Very unfortunately, Safdar Husain Khan died while Abbasi Begum was still expecting, and thus Faiyaz Khan was a posthumous child. It is said that poor Abbasi Begum was ostracised and spurned by her husband’s family, for they blamed her for the untimely death of Safdar Husain Khan. The sorrowing widowed and expectant Abbasi Begum, therefore, went to live permanently with her father Ghulam Abbas Khan and it was there that Faiyaz Khan was born. The grandfather took complete charge of bringing up young Faiyaz Khan and started teaching him in the traditional style from a very young age. Ghulam Abbas Khan and Kallan Khan together groomed Faiyaz Khan into the great performer that he was. There are many stories about the sternness and discipline which the grandfather rigorously enforced in the training of Faiyaz Khan. Even though some of them sound almost cruel, the old man was convinced that it was the only way to groom the youngster into a great musician.

Faiyaz Khan thus never got any opportunity to receive talim from his father’s Rangila gharana. It is, therefore, not correct to say that Faiyaz Khan’s gayaki was a blend of the Agra and Rangila gayakis as many people seem to think.

The khayals and dhrupad-dhamars he sang were those that he acquired directly from Ghulam Abbas Khan and Kallan Khan and later from father-in-law Mehboob Khan ‘Daras’ Atrauliwale. Faiyaz Khan himself composed a large number of beautiful bandishes which are not only sung quite frequently but also taught to all the younger ustads of his family and many others.

Faiyaz Khan was a very intelligent musician and a keen listener. Right from his childhood his grandfather and grand-uncle used to encourage him constantly to listen to the leading musicians of all the gharanas, so that he could absorb the finer and compatible aspects of their music into his own singing style. Thus Faiyaz Khan was made to listen quite often to all the noted classical and semi-classical musicians of his day. Soon he began absorbing he maximum possible ideas from their music into his own gayaki. Thus it was that Faiyaz Khan became adept at such diverse styles as the tarana, thumri, tirvat, hori, dadra, tappa, rasiya, ghazal, etc., in addition to his own khayal and dhrupad-dhamar styles learnt from the grandfather and grand-uncle.

Because of his outstanding ability and ease of singing various types of musical styles, Faiyaz Khan came to be known as a “Choumukhi (four-faceted) Gawaiye” and a “Rangeel (colourful) Gayak”. It is this term rangeel that usually gets confused with the Rangila gharana with which Faiyaz Khan had only basic blood relations but no musical connexions of any kind whatever. He was Agra gharana through and through. After the passing away of the three all-time great performers of the gharana (Natthan Khan, Abdullah Khan and Bhaskerbuva Bakhale) by the 1920’s Faiyaz Khan was considered the most outstanding exponent till almost his death in 1950. He reigned supreme in the field of classical music for well over quarter of a century.

Faiyaz Khan was the court musician of the Gaekwad of Baroda for many years and several other musicians of the court benefited considerably by associating themselves with Faiyaz Khan. He travelled widely and many princes and institutions showered titles on him for his outstanding musical capabilities. However, the one by which he was most popularly known is “Aftab-e-Mousiqi” awarded to him by the Maharaja of Mysore. The street on which his house in Baroda is situated is called Ustad Faiyaz Khan Road, the only street named after a musician in that musically rich city.

Faiyaz Khan did not teach anyone in the traditional style, nor did he give talim to anyone particularly the way most other ustads of his gharana did and still do. This was because he was every bit an ace performer and concert musician and naturally had little time or inclination for any kind of proper talim. However, many are the musicians who derived considerable benefit by associating themselves with Faiyaz Khan. Almost all the younger ustads and musicians of his family and several others used to provide him vocal support and thus acquired many aspects of his gayaki, both its mechanics and aesthetics. Others merely listened to him long enough to absorb a part of his singing style. Some have even imbibed a bit of his style by just listening to his records and recordings over and over again. Therefore, there are a large number of musicians who have derived much benefit from Faiyaz Khan, many of whom can be called, and do indeed call themselves, his disciples. The impact of Faiyaz Khan’s music has thus been very great not only on today’s more senior musicians of the Agra and Atrauli gharanas but numerous others. All the younger ustads of his khandan have learnt from him at one time or another for varying periods of time. Among Faiyaz Khan’s prominent disciples outside the khandan, the names of Dilip Chandra Vedi, S. N. Ratanjankar, Narendra Rai Shukla, S. K. Choube, Kundan Lal Saigal (of film fame) and Sohan Singh must be mentioned.

The author is told that there was a time when every Agra gharana musician, direct or indirect, tried to imitate Faiyaz Khan and claimed to be his disciple. It is only the younger musicians, who started learning music from the '50s onwards, who have broken away from the so-called “Faiyaz Khan Cult”. However, the fact that Faiyaz Khan was literally hero-worshipped for nearly thirty continuous years indeed shows what a great musician he was. One can only imagine what Natthan Khan, Abdullah Khan and Bhaskerbuva Bakhale were like from Faiyaz Khan’s own words: “I am just an anna (about six paise) if Abdullah Khan were a rupee” and Abdullah Khan himself was only a second to Natthan Khan in musical stature.

In almost the same way, the author is told that Alladiya Khan used to say often; “my Kesar (referring to his leading disciple Kesarbai Kerkar) is not even a chavanni (25 paise) if Bablibai were a rupee”. Bablibai, it will be recalled, was an outstanding disciple of Natthan Khan. Those who have heard Kesarbai in person (the author is not one of them) could probably get an idea of what Bablibai was from Alladiya Khan’s statement.

The author has also not heard Faiyaz Khan sing because he was too young in 1950 - the year the great man died - but he has heard and derived much satisfaction from many of his tape recordings.

The blending of the Gwalior gayaki of Natthan Peerbaksh into the Agra gayaki of Saras Rang - Sham Rang has been explained in detail earlier. This however did not cause a fusion of the two gharanas since they both exist separately and distinctly. The second major and lasting influence came from the Atrauli gharana, particularly through its most distinguished exponent, Mehboob Khan “Daras”.

First, Mehboob Khan’s sister, Jasiya Begum, was given in marriage to Agra gharana’s most outstanding exponent Natthan Khan. This brought the Agra and Atrauli gharanas together right from the 19th century because Natthan Khan’s sons, the torch bearers of the Agra gharana, were often taught by their uncle Mehboob Khan.

Secondly, Kallan Khan’s outstanding disciples, Khadim Husain Khan and Anwar Husain Khan, were the sons of Altaf Husain Khan Atrauliwale, nephew of Mehboob Khan "Daras". Therefore, to both of them Mehboob Khan was a grand-uncle from the paternal as well as maternal side. Both the brothers, and particularly Khadim Husain Khan, thus got the opportunity of learning much from Mehboob Khan ‘Daras’ directly as also from other ustads of their father’s Atrauli khandan.

Thirdly, Mehboob Khan’s daughter was given in marriage to the Agra gharana’s Faiyaz Khan, which enabled the latter to learn quite a bit of music and cheezas from the father-in-law.

Fourthly, Mehboob Khan’s sons, Atta Husain Khan and Bande Hasan Khan, went to live with Faiyaz Khan at Baroda, and Atta Husain Khan was with him almost up to the time of Faiyaz Khan’s death. This created a further fusion of the two gayakis and particularly so because most musicians who came to Baroda to learn from Faiyaz Khan were essentially taught by Atta Husain Khan.

These four factors have indeed resulted in the Agra gharana of Nauhar bani absorbing fully the Atrauli gayaki of Gobarhar bani. The resultant delightful gayaki of today will necessarily have to be called the Agra-Atrauli or Agra (Atrauli) gharana.

This Agra-Atrauli gharana of today has thus acquired the broadest possible sweep and widest variety in its musical content and has emerged into a colourful, brilliant, multi-faceted gayaki. The gayaki is known to have eighteen basic angs (aspects) of classical music fused into itself. They are so beautifully blended that it is almost impossible to say which belonged to the original dhrupad-oriented Agra gayaki of Saras Rang - Sham Rang and which came in from the khayal-oriented Gwalior gayaki of Natthan Peerbaksh and the Atrauli gayaki of Mehboob Khan ‘Daras’. The result is a homogeneous and well-integrated beautiful style.

The repertoire of the gharana today comprises innumerable ragas and cheezas and they are roughly made up of a third each from the Agra (original), Gwalior and Atrauli gharanas. No doubt, the Agra ustads sing and teach a good deal of old traditional cheezas of Sadarang, Adarang and others which are common to many gharanas. Most probably these came in via Natthan Peerbaksh. It is however somewhat puzzling how some cheezas composed by “Daras Piya” and taught by him directly to the Agra and Atrauli musicians like Khadim Husain Khan are also sung by other gharana musicians with major variations.

As is well known, each gharana has its specialities and peculiarities which make for variety. Some are sur-pradhan, some taan-pradhan, some laya-pradhan and some try or claim to strike a mean between these. Whether they succeed at all and if so, to what extent, is a matter of opinion. However the one musician who convincingly demonstrated his outstanding ability to sing gayakis which emphasise sur, taan and laya differently was the Agra gharana’s Natthan Khan.

Natthan Khan was particularly noted for his uncanny and almost unbelievable command over laya and taans, which often tempted other musicians to state that he sang only laya-pradhan gayaki. Once, in a gathering of noted musicians and connoisseurs, Natthan Khan overhead someone referring to him as “laya- ka-badshah” (king of rhythm). That day, seeing the distinguished audience, Natthan Khan decided to sing only sur-pradhan gayaki. It is said that he sang Malkauns for about an hour and a half in an unbelievably slow vilambit laya with such emotion, emphasising each sur so tunefully, that everyone present was moved to tears. The person who had called him laya-ka-badshah came to Natthan Khan with folded hands and said: ‘Khan Saheb, today I have realised that there is not a single aspect of classical music in which you are even slightly lacking”. A close second to Natthan Khan was his second son Abdullah Khan, followed by Bablibai, Bhaskerbuva Bakhale, Faiyaz Khan and others. (Bhaskerbuva Bakhale had the added advantage that he learnt some special taan patterns from Alladiya Khan for nearly six months).

It will thus be clear that if there is indeed one gayaki, whose exponents have actually demonstrated their equal and total command, ease and ability over the various aspects of classical music like sur, raga-vistar, bol-vistar, barhat, phirat, sargam, taan, bol-taan, laya-bol, bol-baant, layakari and many others and have conclusively proved to have achieved a true, real and total synthesis in classical music, it is the Agra gayaki of Kallan Khan, Natthan Khan and Faiyaz Khan, who constitute the very foundation of the gharana. The author is tempted to compare the various aspects and styles of classical music in vogue to the different shades and colours of the rainbow - VIBGYOR - and the Agra gayaki to the combination or homogeneous blend of all the colours, namely, the pure white colour obtained in the famous Physics experiment of the “rotating multi-coloured disc.”

From the time Natthan Khan actually demonstrated his total command over every aspect of classical music (about the year 1870 or so), the Agra gharana and its outstanding gayaki were held in very high esteem for nearly a century up to the mid ‘60s. Those were the glorious years of Zohrabai, Mohammed Khan, Abdullah Khan, Bablibai, Bhaskerbuva Bakhale, Faiyaz Khan, Tasadduq Husain Khan, Vilayat Husain Khan, Nanne Khan, Bashir Khan, Khadim Husain Khan and Anwar Husain Khan. Only when the great ustads were no more or were well past their prime and performing ability that the Agra gharana started being known as a laya-based gayaki and even some knowledgeable people seem to think so.

One of the main reasons for this is probably the fact that most of the gharana’s bandishes are based on a delightful interplay of bol and laya, especially in drut laya, and since these are taught to the students of the gharana right from the beginning of their talim, layakari comes naturally to the Agra musicians even though it is never specially taught to anyone. In fact, a few of the Agra gharana exponents are so obsessed with their uncanny command of laya that they tend to sing an overabundance of layakari. This is more so if the exponents have had insufficient talim and still want to impress the listeners. This has probably given the gharana itself a reputation of being predominantly laya-based.

Really knowledgeable people will certainly know that this is quite incorrect because the true essence of today’s Agra-Atrauli gayaki is sur-ka-lagaav. It is the heritage and legacy, after all, of the great Ghagge Khudabaksh, the most sureel musician of his generation and century. Therefore, the core of the gayaki, as expounded by authentic ustads like Khadim Husain Khan, who was rigorously trained by Ghaggeji’s own son, is indeed sur-ka-lagaav in which the ustads are unparalleled.

Notwithstanding the fact that sur is the very basis of the Agra-Atrauli gayaki, the various blendings and mergers described earlier have rendered the gayaki richer and it has woven into itself almost every ang or aspect of classical music. The beauty of it is that each ang is present in the right measure. There is thus neither an over-emphasis on sur to the extent of creating a dragging effect, nor an overdose of taans which leave a sensitive and initiated listener emotionally cold and dissatisfied. Instead, the gayaki has all the vivid and multifarious aspects of classical music necessary for the emotional, aesthetic and intellectual satisfaction of both the connoisseur and the average listener alike. This is the brilliant gayaki of Ustad Khadim Husain Khan. 3. USTAD KHADIM HUSAIN KHAN: FAMILY, BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD

Khadim Husain Khan represents the ideal confluence of the Agra gharana of Nauhar bani and the Atrauli gharana of Gobarhar bani. He was born in the Atrauli khandan but was trained mainly by a 19th century ustad of the Agra gharana, his mother's khandan. Therefore one must necessarily go through both the khandans while looking at his family. The Agra side of his family will be described first since he was trained in the traditional guru-shishya-parampara in that style.

Khan Saheb in a pensive mood The previous chapter dealt with the early musicians of the Nauhar bani and Agra gharana and went on to describe the founder father of today's style, Ghagge Khudabaksh, its main pillars, Sher Khan and Ghulam Abbas Khan, and its three outstanding greats, Kallan Khan, Natthan Khan and Faiyaz Khan. It also described the evolution and characteristics of the Agra-Atrauli gayaki. In this chapter we will briefly go through Khadim Husain Khan's Agra side of the family from the time of Aurangazeb (see family tree).

Dayam Khan 'Nauhar' alias Miya Saras Rang can be said to be the "founder" of the original dhrupad- oriented Agra gharana, because most probably it was during his time that the Nauhar bani changed to the Agra gharana. Saras Rang's son was Qayam Khan alias Sham Rang. Sham Rang had four sons Junghu Khan, Soosu Khan, Gulab Khan and Khudabaksh. While the eldest Junghu Khan had only one son, Sher Khan, the youngest Ghagge Khudabaksh had two sons, Ghulam Abbas Khan and Kallan Khan. There is no authentic information available about the children of the second and third brothers, and it is presumed that their children did not take seriously to music and probably stayed at the family village of Gondpur till 1857.

Sher Khan's only son was Natthan Khan, while Ghulam Abbas Khan had only two daughters, Abbasi Begum and Qaadri Begum, but no sons. Abbasi Begum was married to Safdar Husain Khan Sikandrabadwale, and their only son (and child) was Faiyaz Khan. Qaadri Begum was married to Kale Khan Mathurawale alias Saras Piya. Their two sons are Ghulam Rasool Khan and Ghulam Nabi Khan. Both of them have three sons each, some of whom are carrying on the musical traditions.

Kallan Khan had one daughter and one son, while Faiyaz Khan was childless all his life even though he married three times. Natthan Khan, however, had seven children - three sons, then a daughter and three more sons. The khandan of the Agra gharana has been carried down by the children of Natthan Khan, and as their mother was none other than the sister of Mehboob Khan "Daras" Atrauliwale, the entire Agra khandan of today is directly related to the Atrauli khandan.

Kallan Khan's son and four of Natthan Khan's six sons reached great heights in music and they all taught Khadim Husain Khan. Kallan Khan's son was Tasadduq Husain Khan (1879-1946). He was an outstanding musician and head of the music school founded by the Maharaja of Baroda for several years. He was also an excellent composer and used the pseudonym "Vinod Piya" in his musical compositions which are very beautiful and sung often by the Agra gharana exponents. It is understood that Tasadduq Husain Khan had taken great pains and compiled a comprehensive manuscript in Urdu giving details of the gharana's old time ustads as gathered from the elders of his family, his own memoirs of the noted musicians of his time both from within and outside his khandan, the raga-forms and compositions of his gharana and several other details and particulars of much interest to musicians and music lovers. It was his intention to publish it for the benefit of posterity but, for unknown reasons, not only was it not published but even the whereabouts of the manuscript are unknown. This is a matter of deep regret. Tasadduq Husain Khan did not have any children.

Hydari Begum was Kallan Khan's daughter and was older than Tasadduq Husain Khan. She was given in marriage to Mohammed Khan (1870-1922), the eldest son of Natthan Khan. Although Mohammed Khan was a fine musician, he did not become a popular performer because his voice was not as sweet or melodious as that of his father and younger brother. But he was a very learned and intelligent musician and had an uncanny knack of picking up and mastering rare and difficult ragas. He often consulted the noted ustads of other gharanas and learnt many less-known ragas from them. He also discussed with them the raga-forms of his own gharana. He was such a master of rare and difficult ragas that it was said that a raga which Mohammed Khan did not know was not worth knowing ! To Mohammed Khan goes the credit of popularising several less-known ragas in Bombay and elsewhere.

Mohammed Khan's son Bashir Khan was also a knowledgeable and noted musician of the Agra gharana. Bashir Khan has sons who are practising musicians. The eldest of them is Aqeel Ahmed Khan who lives in Agra and the others are Shabeer Ahmed, Naseem Ahmed and Vasi Ahmed.

The second son of Natthan Khan was Abdullah Khan (1873-1920). He was an outstanding musician and all those who have heard him unhesitatingly agree that Abdullah Khan came nearest to Natthan Khan's inimitable style. When Natthan Khan was the court musician of the Mysore durbar, the Maharaja one day heard young Abdullah Khan singing and was so delighted with his rendering that he was separately installed as a durbar musician at a young age. As mentioned earlier, Faiyaz Khan used to admit freely that he was just an 'anna' if Abdullah Khan were a rupee. Abdullah Khan has composed some very popular cheezas under the pseudonym "Manhar Piya". It is a matter of regret that Abdullah Khan died at a fairly young age (he was less than 50), creating a void that could only partially be filled by Faiyaz Khan. Abdullah Khan did not beget any children but he was so fond of Khadim Husain Khan that he adopted him as his own son.

The third son of Natthan Khan was Mohammed Siddique. The father was grooming him to become a musician but he was not destined to live long. He was cycling one day at Indore when he suddenly collapsed and died. This was sometime in 1915-17 when he was still a bachelor. The only daughter, Faiyazi Begum, was given in marriage to Altaf Husain Khan, a noted musician of the Atrauli gharana. Faiyazi Begum was Khadim Husain Khan's mother and more will be said about her later.

The fourth son of Natthan Khan was the famous Vilayat Husain Khan (1892-1962), who needs no introduction to music lovers. He was a fine musician and a master of laya. He was a brilliant teacher and taught innumerable shagirds in Bombay and elsewhere. Like his eldest brother, he too was responsible for popularising a lot of less-known ragas of his gharana. He has composed numerous beautiful cheezas under the pseudonym "Pran Piya" which are very popular and widely sung.

His first son Yusuf Husain was shaping very well but unfortunately, he died in his twenties. He has three more sons, the eldest of whom is the noted musician-composer of the gharana, Yunus Husain Khan, who used to teach in the Delhi University but is now on the staff of Shantiniketan. His pseudonym is "Darpan" and he could be called the Khalifa of the Agra gharana today. The next son of Vilayat Husain Khan, Yakub Husain, also sings but the last son Khurshid Husain has not taken to music. Vilayat Husain Khan also has four daughters and they are married to Latafat Husain Khan, Sharafat Husain Khan, Ghulam Ahmed and Shabeer Ahmed.

Natthan Khan's fifth son, Babu Khan (1897-1933), was not a practicing musician, though he did learn some music here and there. He took mainly to trade and was an expert in making numerous types of kites. He was a keen kite flier himself. He was not married and died quite young.

The last son, Nanne Khan (1899-1945), was also a very knowledgeable and fine musician. He was an excellent poet-composer and used the pseudonym "Shakeel" in his poetry. However, in his musical compositions, he used only the pseudonyms of his elders to show his respect for them. As Nanne Khan stayed with Vilayat Husain Khan in Bombay for many years, he taught several of Vilayat Husain Khan’s students. Khadim Husain Khan, in particular, has learnt a large number of traditional cheezas of the gharana from Nanne Khan. He has two sons, Amanat Ali and Mubarak Ali, who are both practising musicians.

As Tasadduq Husain Khan and Faiyaz Khan were childless and Hydari Begum was married to Mohammed Khan, the entire khandan of the Agra gharana today has been carried down by the children of three sons and the only daughter of Natthan Khan. Since Natthan Khan's wife Jasiya Begum was the sister of Atrauli's "Daras Piya", the Agra and Atrauli khandans are inseparably connected today.

Having thus described Khadim Husain Khan's relations on the Agra (mother's) side, it will be interesting to examine the history of his father's Atrauli gharana and mention some of its distinguished musicians.

The author has, admittedly, not researched into the genealogy of the Atrauli gharana to the extent that he has done in the case of the Agra gharana. The details given herein are based mainly on the information furnished by Yunus Husain and that gathered from others, notably Khadim Husain Khan himself.

Atrauli had three separate musical khandans derived from three of the four original banis. As such, there is much confusion between the musicians of these three branches as they tend to get mixed up with one another. The first or the main Atrauli gharana, to which Khadim Husain Khan belongs, is known to be a derivative of the Gobarhar bani, the second Atrauli gharana musicians descended from the Dagur bani and the musicians of the third branch, which is somewhat allied to the first, seem to have belonged to the Nauhar bani. Our interest here is mainly in the first (Gobarhari) branch but some details of the second and third branches will be given later in this chapter.

The Gobarhari Atrauli gharana, admittedly, is a recent one compared to the Agra gharana and can be traced back only to the 18th century, roughly the period of Mohammed Shah Rangila and his distinguished court musicians Niyamat Khan 'Sadarang' and Firoz Khan 'Adarang'. Being an offshoot of the Gobarhar bani, it can be surmised that it had connexions with the Gwalior gharana. In fact, the story goes that the nawab of a place called Chondera (in Uttar Pradesh) brought four brothers, who were eminent musicians, from Gwalior to Atrauli. They were Hidayat Khan, Mughul Khan alias Raja Ji, Karim Husain and Jabbar Khan. Soon after settling down in Atrauli, they became the disciples of a Sufi by the name of Shah Faiyaz Chisti. These four brothers founded the 'House' of music in Atrauli. A family tree of the gharana is included in an appendix and the full credit for it again goes to Yunus Husain Khan.

The eldest of the four brothers, Hidayat Khan, was a very learned but simple musician. His daughter was given in marriage to the famous Tanras Khan of the Delhi gharana. Hidayat Khan also had a son by name Lal Khan. Lal Khan's sons were outstanding and learned musicians. They were Chajju Khan (died 1895), Fazal Husain Khan, Inayat Khan (1845-1926), Faiz Khan and Riyaz Khan.

Among the five sons of Lal Khan, it was Inayat Khan who carried the khandan down. He had three sons, Ahmed Khan, Atlaf Husain Khan and Liaqat Husain Khan. The eldest, Ahmed Khan, had a son by name Ejaz Husain Khan, whose son, Shafi Ahmed Khan, is a music teacher in the Aligarh University and disciple of Khadim Husain Khan. Altaf Husain Khan, the second son of Inayat Khan, was the father of Khadim Husain Khan and others about whom more will be said later. The third son, Liaqat Husain Khan, was the father of Sharafat Husain Khan, a very famous musician of today.

The second founder-brother of the Atrauli gharana was Mughul Khan, who was affectionately nicknamed "Raja Ji" by his contemporaries. His son was the famous Haji Zahoor Khan and the Haji's sons were the legendary Mehboob Khan alias 'Daras Piya' and Munshi Jamal Ahmed Khan. The latter became the father-in-law of Khadim Husain Khan. Zahoor Khan also had two daughters, Jasiya Begum and Vilto Begum, the former being the wife of the Agra gharana's outstanding exponent Natthan Khan.

Mehboob Khan ‘Daras’ had two sons, Atta Husain Khan and Bande Hasan Khan. Atta Husain Khan lived in Calcutta and died in August, 1980 ; his son Wahid Husain lives in Atrauli. Bande Hasan Khan’s son Nasir Husain lives in Calcutta and learnt from the uncle Atta Husain Khan till the latter’s recent death.

Karim Husain was the third founder-brother of the Atrauli khandan. His son was Munshi Ghulam Husain, who was known to be a highly learned, respected and outstanding musician of his time. Apart from learning from his own khandan, Munshi Ghulam Husain received some training from Agra's Ghagge Khudabaksh. More will be said about the Munshi in a later chapter.

Not much is known about Jabbar Khan, the last founder-brother of the Atrauli khandan, except that he too was an outstanding musician and had a son by the name of Noor Khan.

Although the Atrauli khandan has many living descendants, who are practising musicians, almost all of them have been very considerably influenced by the Agra gharana, as mentioned in the second chapter of this book. As indicated earlier, Mehboob Khan's sons, Atta Husain Khan and Bande Hasan Khan lived for several years with the Agra gharana maestro Faiyaz Khan. Altaf Husain Khan's two elder sons, Khadim Husain Khan and Anwar Husain Khan, were trained mainly by Agra's Kallan Khan, while the youngest, Latafat Husain Khan, was trained by his eldest brother, Khadim Husain Khan, and other Agra ustads like Faiyaz Khan and Vilayat Husain Khan. Liaqat Husain Khan's son, Sharafat Husain Khan learnt from Atta Husain Khan while the latter was with Faiyaz Khan. Sharafat Husain Khan thus absorbed quite a bit of Faiyaz Khan's style also. Shafi Ahmed Khan, son of Ejaz Husain Khan and grandson of Ahmed Khan, was trained by Khadim Husain Khan and other Agra ustads. Thus, the gharanas of Agra and Atrauli slowly but surely began to merge, and, in the first half of this century itself, the "merger" was almost complete. The starting point of this merger was, of course, as mentioned earlier, in the 19th century by the marriage of Natthan Khan with Jasiya Begum.

In view of all this, the resultant gayaki of today must necessarily be identified as the Agra-Atrauli gharana. A chart showing the various interconnexions between the two gharanas is given in an appendix. The Atrauli village, where Khadim Husain Khan's forefathers and parents Altaf Husain Khan and Faiyazi Begum lived, is a hamlet situated in the Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh. Atrauli can proudly boast of three separate musical khandans. It is about 25 kilometres from Aligarh town and is connected to it by a single dusty road. It continues to be inhabited, as it has been for centuries, by simple and humdrum rural folk. The hallowed house where the khandan lived, and continues to live, is even today called, and rightly so, "Mousiqi Manzil" (House of Music). Mousiqi Manzil is the ancestral home of a large number of Atrauli (and Agra) gharana musicians of today.

The first or main Atrauli gharana, which descended from the Gobarhari bani, and its musicians have been described above. It will be interesting to go through briefly the details of the other two khandans of Atrauli.

The second gharana of Atrauli, also known as Atrauli's "Palle-Mohalle-ka-Gharana" (literally "the gharana of the other house") is also famous and has produced several distinguished musicians. It was essentially a dhrupad gharana derived from the Dagur bani. Its exponents claim that their ancestors were originally Adya Gowd Brahmins belonging to the Shandilya Gotra. It is, however, not known at what exact point in time the khandan got converted to Islam but it is generally believed that this happened after Akbar's time but before Aurangazeb, because the earliest known musician of this khandan was already a Muslim during Aurangazeb's period. This was Bade Karimbaksh and it could be surmised that he made Atrauli his home when Aurangazeb banished music from the royal court.

Sometime in the 18th or 19th century, the musicians of this khandan settled down in a place called Uniyara in Rajasthan and for quite a long time they were identified with this place even though they came from Atrauli. However, they never called their gharana Uniyara and stuck to their original Atrauli gharana for several generations. The most famous and outstanding musician of this branch was Imambaksh. He is understood to have taught the dhrupad gayaki to a musician no less than the legendary Ustad Ramzan Khan 'Rangile', the founder of the distinguished Sikandrabad or Rangila gharana.

The musician who attained name and fame from this (Daguri) branch of the Atrauli gharana in this century was Alladiya Khan of Jaipur gharana fame. Alladiya Khan's gharana came to be called the Jaipur gharana mainly for two reasons. First Alladiya Khan's uncle, Jahangir Khan Dhrupadiya, lived in Jaipur and it was he who brought up Alladiya Khan at a fairly young age and groomed him for several years in the khandan's musical traditions. Secondly, Alladiya Khan was fascinated by the famous court musician of Jaipur, Mubarak Ali Khan Qawwal-Bachhe, in his younger days. The Qawwal-Bachhe gharana was particularly noted for its very complex taan patterns. His fascination was so much that Alladiya Khan constantly listened to Mubarak Ali Khan's special style of singing taans and not only absorbed a part of it but he literally converted his khandan's dhrupad gayaki into a beautiful taan-pradhan khayal gayaki. Therefore, Alladiya Khan's gayaki, which was virtually started by him during his Jaipur days, could not obviously be called the Atrauli gayaki. Thus, even though there are two or three distinct musical traditions or gharanas indigenous to Jaipur, Alladiya Khan's gayaki also came to be recognised and accepted as yet another Jaipur gharana. However, since Alladiya Khan belonged to the second or the Daguri branch of the Atrauli khandan, his gharana should correctly be called the Jaipur-Atrauli or Jaipur (Atrauli) gharana.

The third branch of Atrauli, which is somewhat allied to the first Gobarhari branch by many intermarriages, was derived from the Nauhar bani. This branch too has produced many outstanding musicians.

The ancestry of this Nauhari branch of the Atrauli gharana can be traced back to two brothers, Niyamat Khan and Kallu Khan. (This Niyamat Khan should not be confused with his namesake who came to be known popularly as Sadarang). These two brothers lived roughly in the period of Ghagge Khudabaksh - late 18th century to mid-19th century. Among many great musicians of this khandan, the names of Chimman Khan, Ghasit Khan, Ali Baksh Khan and Lal Khan are famous. It is understood that the Agra gharana's Natthan Khan was trained for some time by Ghasit Khan from whom he derived considerable benefit.

The most famous musician of this khandan in this century was Puttan Khan, son of Ali Baksh Khan mentioned above. More will be said about Puttan Khan in another chapter. It is a matter of interest that Ali Baksh Khan's brother, Lal Khan, had a daughter by name Asiya Begum who was married to Mehboob Khan 'Daras' of the first Atrauli gharana. Also, Puttan Khan's sister, Hakiman Begum, was the mother of Mushtaq Husain Khan of Rampur-Sahaswan gharana fame. There are several such interconnexions which make the various gharanas related to one another.

Thus Atrauli has produced a large number of distinguished and outstanding musicians over the last two to three centuries and one cannot but conclude that there is some musical "magic" in the soil of Atrauli !

To Altaf Husain Khan and Faiyazi Begum a girl was born around the year 1900 in the Atrauli village. The girl died very young which naturally caused immense grief to the parents. They constantly prayed for another child and a healthy one this time. However their prayers remained unanswered for more than four years.

Altaf Husain Khan, besides being a noted musician, did a small business of buying and selling clocks. Those were the days when the British empire had its capital and main business activities in Calcutta. So Altaf Husain Khan used to travel to Calcutta now and then to buy the clocks for his business in Atrauli.

When he was planning to set out on one of his trips, he was told by a friend that there lived a fakir in Calcutta who was known to possess divine powers. The friend advised Altaf Husain Khan to visit the fakir and ask for help in getting a child. As soon as Altaf Husain Khan reached Calcutta, he went straight to the fakir and poured out his sorrow at the loss of their first born child and that a second had not been born to them for over four years. The fakir took pity on Altaf Husain Khan, gave him a copper talisman and blessed him, saying that he would get a son who should be named "Khadim Husain" and the talisman was to be tied around the child's neck. Altaf Husain Khan eagerly rushed back to Atrauli and told Faiyazi Begum of the fakir's blessings and the copper talisman.

True enough, a son was soon born to Faiyazi Begum and was duly christened Khadim Husain, as suggested by the fakir, and the talisman tied around his neck. Thus Khadim Husain Khan became the eldest of Altaf Husain Khan's and Faiyazi Begum's children.

There is some doubt about the exact year of Khadim Husain Khan's birth. It varies from 1903 to 1907 according to different sources, and Khadim Husain Khan himself is unable to say it with any accuracy. However from various indications like the age at which he started learning from his ustad, the duration of his talim, the year in which he came to Bombay, etc, his year of birth can be placed either at 1904 or 1905. The author assumes that he was born in 1905.

Next to Khadim Husain Khan was born Anwar Husain Khan (between 1908 and 1910), then Latafat Husain Khan (around 1920) and then two daughters. There were also other children born to Faiyazi Begum between the two younger brothers, but they died very young.

The birth of Khadim Husain Khan brought great joy to his parents and other members of the family, especially because he was born more than four years after the death of the first-born girl. There was also a divine touch in his birth because of the Calcutta fakir's blessings. So the parents brought him up with great love and affection.

From the day Khadim Husain Khan was born, there was music in the house and all round him ; his ears were thus constantly tuned to beautiful music. He naturally grew up in a highly musical atmosphere and environment. Even at a tender age, it was quite obvious that he would become a great musician, for he had a very tuneful voice and an uncanny sense of rhythm. The parents therefore often gave thought to the question of young Khadim's musical grooming. They had a wide choice too, because there were stalwarts like Mehboob Khan "Daras" and Munshi Jamal Ahmed Khan in his father's khandan and outstanding ustads like Ghulam Abbas Khan and Kallan Khan, as well as his distinguished uncles Mohammed Khan and Abdullah Khan in his mother's khandan. As a matter of fact, Abdullah Khan was childless and was so fond of young Khadim that he was adopted as a son by Abdullah Khan. Only Khadim Husain Khan's maternal grandfather Natthan Khan was no more because he died in 1901 (in Mysore) even before Khadim Husain Khan was born.

From a very young age his elders would tell him what a great and sureel musician Ghagge Khudabaksh was and how, even though he had passed away in 1880, the impact of Ghaggeji's music was great and still fresh in the minds of the elders of the family. Likewise, the praise for Natthan Khan's style of singing was unending. Young Khadim would often think to himself that some day he too would try his best to attain those heights in music.

About the year 1908, Altaf Husain Khan and his brother Liaqat Husain Khan were invited by the Maharaja of Jaipur to come over to Jaipur and become musicians in the durbar. Even though Altaf Husain Khan had the clock business in Atrauli, he decided to accept the invitation and both the brothers went with their families to live in Jaipur. Kallan Khan, already in Jaipur then, was one of the seniormost musicians of the durbar, being the worthy and natural successor to his father Ghaggeji. Altaf Husain Khan and his family took up their residence on the ground floor of the same building in which Kallan Khan stayed on the first floor.

It will be recalled that Ghulam Abbas Khan and Kallan Khan were the first cousins of Sher Khan : so they were the uncles of Natthan Khan, grand-uncles of Faiyazi Begum and, therefore, the great grand-uncles of Khadim Husain Khan. To young Khadim, his great grand-uncles were awe-inspiring because they were three generations removed from him. They were highly respected by all not only for their excellence in music but also for being the sons of the legendary Ghagge Khudabaksh. They were both very old men from the time he remembers them. When his family moved to Jaipur, Ghulam Abbas Khan and Kallan Khan were well over 80 and 70 respectively. So Khadim Husain Khan had the greatest reverence and respect for the grand old men. He was almost scared of them even though they were both extremely fond of him.

By then Ghulam Abbas Khan and Kallan Khan had groomed Faiyaz Khan into a fine musician but the effort involved was truly strenuous for Ghulam Abbas Khan. He, therefore, made up his mind not to take on any more full-time talim because of his advancing age. Kallan Khan too had more or less completed the training of his son Tasadduq Husain Khan, and grand-nephews Vilayat Husain Khan and Nanne Khan. However, though over 70, he was still very active and was coaching a number of other disciples, prominent among whom were Firdausibai Agrewali and Bibbobai Jaipurwali.

Khadim Husain Khan as a child remembers going upstairs, often to listen to Kallan Khan teaching his disciples. He would sometimes stay on there for a long time, absolutely absorbed and spellbound, till he suddenly heard the anxious voice of his mother calling him from downstairs. So melodious was Kallan Khan, even at that advanced age, that all his disciples would almost be in a trance when he was demonstrating detailed delineation of the various ragas. He remembers that the disciples would actually sway in unison with the soft and easy gestures of his hands while singing. Very often there were tears in the eyes of his disciples while Kallan Khan sang plaintive ragas like Jaunpuri, Asavari, Bilaskhani, Jogiya, etc. and suddenly he too would find himself in tears. He would then wonder how sureel Ghaggeji should have been if the son were so tuneful as to melt his disciples and listeners to tears.

Thus passed a few years, after the family moved to Jaipur, when young Khadim was constantly exposed to the most melodious music of that time. He began to understand and appreciate the beauty of sur and sur- ka-lagaav, and slowly but surely his whole system got tuned to beautiful and intensely emotional music. 4. USTAD KHADIM HUSAIN KHAN'S TRAINING

By the time Khadim Husain Khan was about 9, the serious question of his musical grooming came up. The parents now had a very easy choice since the ablest teacher and musician of the Agra gharana was staying upstairs. Kallan Khan, though over 78, was in the pink of health. Most people of today at this age would not only be considered well past their prime but to have reached or crossed the age of senility, but Kallan Khan was not. He was full of vim and vigour, and when approached for Khadim Husain Khan's "official" training, he was not only ready but quite happy to take on the young prodigy and also his younger brother Anwar Husain Khan as whole-time disciples. This meant almost 12 to 14 hours of talim a day in those days (and no weekends to rest !). Considering that Kallan Khan lived up to the year 1925, when he was 90, in fairly good health, his decision to take on the youngsters as full-time shagirds is not surprising.

Thus, in about 1914, Khadim and Anwar (who was then just a toddler) were "officially" made the disciples of Kallan Khan by the traditional ganda-bandhan ceremony. Anwar Husain Khan was too young then to start the rigorous musical training, but Khadim Husain Khan was at the right age to start in earnest. Therefore, with prayers to God, Kallan Khan started the talim straightaway with the traditional sargam- bandish in the raga Yaman or Eman "िन ध प म ग रे ग म". This was taught for about a couple of weeks. Then the ustad went on to teach him the cheeza in Multani "रवा मेडे औगुन िचतना धरो". Since this was the very first bandish that the ustad taught him, he was thrilled and delighted. He still remembers running to his parents in great excitement that he had learnt a new cheeza in Multani, a raga that he was not quite familiar with !

Thus commenced Khadim Husain Khan's eleven years of hard and rigorous talim from Kallan Khan. The fact that Kallan Khan was over 78 when Khadim Husain Khan was 9 shows that the music came literally from an earlier century.

It was made very clear to the young disciples right from the beginning that the shagirds' duty was not just to learn music from the ustad but to perform all the tasks that the ustad wanted them to undertake and to do his seva at all times. The shagirds were to be at his beck and call day and night and were not to shirk their duty to him at any cost. All this was constantly dinned into the youngsters by the parents and all others in the family (except the ustad himself); thus seva of the ustad soon became a way of life with them despite the natural playfulness associated with their young age.

Being the most sureel musician of his time, Kallan Khan, right from the beginning stressed the importance of the correct application of sur and sur-ka-lagaav. He taught them the basic notes of the octave and how they were to be applied in each raga. Side by side they were taught the various taals and the importance of laya in classical music. If classical music was a person's whole system, laya was the heart- beat. They were taught how to play the tabla so that they could develop a strong sense of rhythm. They would also be told the various incidents and anecdotes in the lives of their distinguished forefathers which the youngsters would listen to with open-mouthed awe.

There are many stories about the sternness and strictness with which Ghulam Abbas Khan taught his grandson Faiyaz Khan. Some of them sound almost cruel, but the old man knew that was the only way to discipline the rather fickle-minded and playful young Faiyaz. The result of that discipline turned out to be precisely what the old man expected in the first place, for it was that which made Faiyaz Khan the outstanding musician that he was.

By contrast, with Kallan Khan the story was different. Discipline and strictness were of course very much there and were invariably part and parcel of any musical training in those days. However, there was the overriding factor of love and kindness with which Kallan Khan was almost saturated. Young Khadim was the first great grand-nephew and Kallan Khan treated him just like his own great grandson with the proverbial love. Even today, when Khadim Husain Khan thinks of the affection and love showered on him by his great grand-uncle and guru, tears come to his eyes showing that the love was fully reciprocated.

Even though Khadim Husain Khan was still a child when the talim began, Kallan Khan started teaching him in right earnest. The ustad would teach him for hours together at one stretch but would make sure later that he got adequate food and rest. The ustad would only expect some service from the shagirds, for which of course Khadim Husain Khan was ever willing. Kallan Khan would make young Khadim, and later the younger Anwar also, run all kinds of errands. While the ustad slept, the boys would press his feet and, in summer, they would fan him.

Once the instructions started in full swing, Kallan Khan would go on teaching his pupils till late into the night and usually till the wee hours of the morning. Khadim Husain Khan recalls that his ustad did not let him sleep at nights for more than six years ! A typical day would go as follows :

The ustad would get up at six o'clock in the morning even though his shagirds and he usually went to bed only at three or four o'clock in the morning. He would, however, see that the shagirds were left undisturbed till about 9 a.m. The ustad would go for his constitutional till the shagirds were ready after breakfast by about 10 a.m. Then there would be three to four hours of intense teaching till lunch time between 1 and 2 p.m. After lunch the ustad would rest while the shagirds would run errands and do their own riyaz, recapitulating what the ustad had taught them the previous night and that morning and making notes where necessary.

In the evenings, after tea, the ustad would go out with the shagirds to visit friends and other musicians of the durbar when they would all sit together and recall the old days. They would also talk of each others' various experiences in the musical and other fields. The shagirds would listen to the conversations and discussions with great interest. Early dinner by about 7 p.m would be followed by almost 8 to 9 hours of talim right upto the small hours of the morning. That was when new ragas were taken up, special cheezas were taught and the subtle differences between close ragas were explained in great detail. The ustad would let them go to bed only after 3 a.m. and often 4 a.m.

Such was the musical discipline of those days. Little wonder then that the young shagirds picked up the gayaki, ragas, cheezas, etc. very quickly and became proficient musicians and ustads within the span of a few years. If one tries to calculate how much time it would take an average music student of today learning for three hours a week to pick up all the musical vidya that an ustad like Khadim Husain Khan absorbed from his guru for about 12 years at the rate of 12 hours a day, it would work out to an incredible 300 years or more ! That is why an old-time ustad like Khadim Husain Khan is what he is and an average music student of today is where he (or she) is !

Old-time discipline and musical education were quite different from what they are today and it is very difficult to realise and appreciate the efforts and troubles that the shagirds took and went through to acquire their vidya from the ustads. A fairly good idea can be obtained if one goes through some of the incidents connected with the talim as they show the guru-shishya relationship in a better light.

In the earlier years of the talim the disciples' attention would wander now and then and they would start feeling sleepy by about midnight. That was when the ustad would be very stern and Khadim Husain Khan recalls instances when, in the near-freezing winter midnights of Jaipur, the ustad would catch him dozing off and throw a mug of ice-cold water on his head. Khadim Husain Khan would jump up with such a start that it would be the end of any sleep or drowsiness for the rest of the night ! Young Khadim would often think to himself that such an act of the ustad was sheer cruelty, but he would not dare complain to his parents for he knew only too well that they would invariably insist that the ustad was always right and chide him further for dozing off in the first place and complaining on top of it !

One early morning after a cold-water-on-the-head session the previous night, Khadim Husain Khan was lying half-awake when he chanced to hear the ustad saying : "Poor child, I was unusually harsh with him last night but that was the only way to keep him awake. I shall now go to the bazaar and get some special sweets that Khadim loves for his breakfast". It was then that he realised what a loving ustad Kallan Khan was and all he did, apparently unkind, was in his best interests. Thereafter Khadim Husain Khan made up his mind to learn from the ustad with even greater devotion.

In a similar half-awake condition one early morning young Khadim overhead another conversation. His mother Faiyazi Begum was telling Kallan Khan : "Abbaji, why do you want to go so far ? Send Khadim for it." The ustad's reply was : "Oh, no ! I made him work really hard the whole of last night. So he must get a lot more sleep now, don't wake up the poor child". Whenever Khadim Husain Khan recalls such incidents, tears roll down his cheeks.

Even though Kallan Khan was full of love and kindness, he also had a rather short temper. Khadim Husain Khan admits that he was quite naughty in his younger days. Very often after a long spell of talim when Khadim Husain Khan got tired, he would try various ruses to get some respite. A favourite one was to pluck the tanpura strings very hard so that they would go a little out of tune. The intensely sureel ustad that Kallan Khan was, he could not tolerate anything that was even very slightly out of tune. The ustad would, therefore, immediately stop and take the tanpura to re-tune it with great care. That would give Khadim Husain Khan the respite he needed !

Usually the ustad would mutter to himself that the quality of the current tanpuras was going down ! One day, however, the ustad caught young Khadim plucking the strings deliberately to make them go out of tune. He immediately lost his temper and threw a pair of tongs that he had in his hand at Khadim Husain Khan. A sharp edge of the tongs hit young Khadim's thumb and he yelled in pain. The ustad immediately realised his mistake but not wishing to apologise right there, he went out of the room, told Faiyazi Begum to take care of her son's thumb, went to a corner and wept silently repenting his rash act. Even today, there is a scar and a slight crookedness in Khadim Husain Khan's thumb which serves him as a constant reminder of the incident.

Once when young Khadim indulged in another naughty act, the ustad grew very angry and stopped speaking to and teaching him. Khadim was quite upset about it but, in his childishness, he refused to apologise. This went on for about a week. One evening, the whole family went for a marriage. Someone was entertaining the guests with some light music, but he was singing a beautiful song in an emotion-charged voice. Suddenly, Kallan Khan said : "Khadim, listen quickly to the beautiful application of sur in that voice." Thinking that the ustad had forgotten the fact that he was not on speaking terms with him, Khadim Husain Khan eagerly said : "Yes, Abbaji, it is indeed beautiful". Immediately the ustad snapped back : "Huth, who spoke to you?" That evening Khadim Husain Khan could not contain himself and went to the ustad, wept profusely and apologised. The ustad embraced young Khadim and all was forgotten and forgiven.

One morning the ustad was telling the shagirds the importance of the correct use of sur and how each gharana specialised in the different aspects of the application of sur. At that time, two beggars were passing by, one blind and one lame, singing to the people at large about their sad plight and begging for money. There was such intense pathos in their voices that the ustad unconsciously stopped in the middle of a cheeza and the ustad and the shagirds alike lost themselves in the beggars’ music and, within minutes, started shedding tears. After giving the beggars handsome alms, the ustad told the shagirds : “See, that is real touching music. They have no ustad or gharana and nobody taught them how to sing, yet listen to the emotion that their voices have and see how much you can learn from them in the art of emotional music ! Children, never underestimate any musician, however mediocre he may appear to be. Each musician has his own speciality and you must look for the good points in every musician and try to absorb them yourselves to the extent possible”.

Such incidents and words of advice are firmly stamped on Khadim Husain Khan’s mind and they are the guiding principles of his life.

Kallan Khan was a very hospitable person. Every noted musician visiting Jaipur to give recitals would be invited to his house. He would be treated with love and respect, and served excellent food. Later, Kallan Khan would request the musician to give a recital highlighting the specialities of his gayaki for the benefit of his shagirds, friends, family members and himself. Kallan Khan would listen to him with rapt attention and appreciation and make sure that all the others, particularly his shagirds, would do likewise. The musician would invariably give out his best and it would be a great experience and education for the disciples. Afterwards, Kallan Khan would explain to his disciples the specialities of the musician and what aspects of his gayaki were worth absorbing. Such occasions were quite frequent and they made Kallan Khan’s disciples not just good musicians and ustads but good listeners too.

One night, finding that there was no water in the house, Kallan Khan sent Khadim Husain Khan to the public well, situated some distance away from the house, to fetch water in a large pail. Just as he reached the well he saw a lot of panic-stricken people running away saying that a mad elephant had broken free from the palace stables and was heading in that direction. Undaunted, young Khadim went on to fill the pail with water as was bidden by the ustad. It was only some minutes thereafter, when he saw his anxious parents rushing towards him to take him away from that place, did he realise that it was a very dangerous situation. Still, he clung on to his pail of water and straddled home with his parents. Fortunately, the elephant went away in another direction and nothing untoward happened. However, this incident shows that the ustad’s command was all-important to him even at the risk of his life.

All these incidents indicate the intense discipline that went into Khadim Husain Khan’s talim and the great efforts put in by him to acquire his musical vidya. That is why the inexhaustible knowledge he possesses is very sacred to him. He gives it away gladly and freely to all his disciples who are willing to learn from him with sincerity, for his ustad too gave him freely and gladly all the vidya that he wanted.

By about 1920, Khadim Husain Khan’s father Altaf Husain Khan began to fall ill frequently. He used to get severe bouts of asthma and bronchitis and found it difficult even to sing. The Maharaja continued to pay Altaf Husain Khan his monthly salary for a couple of years after he fell ill ; but on New Year’s day, possibly 1924-25, it was discovered that Altaf Husain Khan's name was removed from the rolls of the Maharaja’s musicians. This created much unhappiness in the household and caused great anxiety and worry to all the family members. The responsibility of looking after the whole family then fell on Khadim Husain Khan’s young shoulders, although he was in no position to earn anything.

Abdullah Khan had asked Faiyazi Begum many times to send young Khadim to Agra so that he could bring him up like his own son. He was childless after all, and had actually adopted Khadim. However, Faiyazi Begum was too fond of the prized boy to let him go. By then, however, Abdullah Khan was no more. Khadim Husain Khan was just about 20 then, yet musically he was quite well up and Kallan Khan was quite satisfied with his progress and accomplishments.

In early 1925, the younger uncle Vilayat Husain Khan’s marriage was fixed in Atrauli and the family went for the occasion to their hometown. Simultaneously, Kallan Khan went to spend a few days in Baroda with his son, Tasadduq Husain Khan. During the Atrauli visit, Faiyazi Begum told her younger brother Vilayat Husain Khan about the family’s plight and difficult circumstances. The kind-hearted Vilayat Husain Khan, immediately volunteered to take nephew Khadim Husain Khan with him to Bombay and try to get him a couple of tuitions, so that he could begin to earn something to support the family. This sounded quite a practical proposition and the family decided to go straight to Baroda after the marriage ceremonies were over, so that they could seek Kallan Khan’s permission.

The family reached Baroda only to find that Kallan Khan was ailing, with pains all over his body. So Khadim Husain Khan took immediate charge of massaging the ustad’s body with oil. It was winter and, being fairly cold in the house, Kallan Khan would lie on a cot in the sun and Khadim Husain Khan would carefully and thoroughly massage him all over. It was during the massage, a couple of days after their arrival in Baroda, that Faiyazi Begum approached Kallan Khan to ask for his “official” permission to let Khadim go to Bombay with Vilayat Husain Khan to make a living. After a moment’s reflection, Kallan Khan stood up and placing both his hands on young Khadim’s head, blessed him. Then he gladly gave him his “official” permission to go to Bombay to make a career there to support the family. Before his departure, however, Kallan Khan gave Khadim Husain Khan these final words of advice to be remembered always :

(i) Be strictly celibate until you are married (लंगोट-बंद रहना) and be absolutely faithful to your wife after marriage. Never, never indulge in wine and women any time in your life.

(ii) Never put anyone to trouble or inconvenience for your own benefit (अपने साथर के िलए िकसीका नुकसान मत करना)

(iii) Always be true and sincere at heart (िदल के सचे रहना)

(iv) If Allah wills, you will go far and do very well. Go to Bombay but always remember to be good and do good to all.

With these words the great ustad bade his ardent and loving disciple goodbye and wished him good luck and godspeed. With profuse tears in the eyes of the ustad and himself, Khadim Husain Khan left the ustad and went to Bombay ; but he has never forgotten those parting words of the ustad which are the guiding lights of his life.

Although the ustad was then 90 and ailing, little did Khadim Husain Khan realise that it was his last darshan of the ustad who had taught him, disciplined him, groomed him, chided him and, above all, loved him. A month later, Kallan Khan went back to Jaipur with the rest of the family and, soon thereafter, his health took a turn for the worse. He probably knew that his end was near, for he kept on thinking of Khadim Husain Khan and very frequently told Anwar Husain Khan, who was still in Jaipur then, that he wished Khadim were there with him. But that was not to be. Within a few days, Kallan Khan breathed his last on the very lap of Anwar Husain Khan, probably his youngest disciple. Thus ended the life of one of the greatest ustads the gharana has produced.

When Khadim Husain Khan was told of his beloved ustad’s death and how he was pining for him during the last few days before his death, his sorrow was very intense and he spent many sleepless nights in tears recalling all the touching incidents during the eleven-year talim. Each incident would rise before his closed eye and he would burst into tears and this went on for several days. It was only Time, the great healer, that eventually brought him some solace.

The wealth of musical vidya that Khadim Husain Khan received from his great ustad Kallan Khan in eleven rigorous years of talim is indeed much richer than what he learnt from all the other ustads put together. He learnt khayal, alap, dhrupad, dhamar, thumri, tarana, dadra, hori and most other forms of classical and semi-classical music in great abundance. He learnt thousands of cheezas in hundreds of ragas. In particular, he learnt his ustad’s speciality, namely, sur-ka-lagaav, and several other aesthetic aspects of classical singing. He learnt the 18-basic angs of classical music that the Agra gharana is famous for. In short, he received literally an ocean of musical vidya direct from the younger son of the present Agra gayaki’s founder-father, Ghagge Khudabaksh.

Nevertheless, this chapter on Khadim Husain Khan’s musical training will be incomplete unless some details are given about what he learnt from other ustads. The author cannot even dream of attempting to list out the ragas or cheezas that Khadim Husain Khan learnt at the feet of Kallan Khan, for they are a veritable ocean. However, he will make an attempt to list out some of the important cheezas and ragas that he acquired from the other ustads of his father’s and mother’s khandans and many others. Where possible, the places and circumstances of such acquisition will also be mentioned.

A great quality in Khadim Husain Khan is his humble acknowledgement of the ustads from whom he learnt music - whether it was a large number of ragas and cheezas or just one simple song. The humility with which he recalls the various musicians who taught him something or the other should indeed be an object lesson to those who conveniently forget to name even their major teachers. Khadim Husain Khan literally “invokes” his various teachers’ memories before he sings the ragas or cheezas taught to him by them. So this chapter will only be complete when his more important teachers are mentioned.

His father did not give him any regular musical training worth the name but it was he who explained to Khadim Husain Khan the various nuances and aesthetics of classical music in his most impressionable years. There is, however, one cheeza that he distinctly remembers having learnt from the father. It is "िचना न कर रे" in the raga Bhimpalasi.

As mentioned before, the great Mehboob Khan alias “Daras Piya” was his paternal as well as maternal grand-uncle. Mehboob Khan was very fond of Khadim Husain Khan and he thus had the opportunity of learning quite a substantial amount of music from the grand-uncle. What he learnt from Mehboob Khan is next only to the vidya he received from Kallan Khan (and probably youngest uncle Nanne Khan), and it is indeed a fact that Khadim Husain Khan learnt more from Mehboob Khan than any other musician of the Agra gharana did. Thus, the “Daras Piya” compositions sung today have all been taught to Khadim Husain Khan direct by the composer himself. In fact, the very first cheeza that he learnt was from Mehboob Khan (and this was before his ganda bandan with Kallan Khan) when the family had come down to Atrauli from Jaipur for a few days.

Khadim Husain Khan was only 7 or 8 then but he distinctly remembers the day Mehboob Khan was teaching his son Atta Husain Khan, his own composition in the raga Khambawati "आलीरी मै जागी". At that time, little Khadim went and sat on the grand-uncle’s lap and said : “Abba, please teach me also this beautiful raga.” Touched and pleased with the youngster’s enthusiasm, he taught him right there the popular and celebrated composition. Khadim Husain Khan remembers that the ustad was so impressed with the way he quickly picked up the rather difficult cheeza and raga that he went straight to Altaf Husain Khan and Faiyazi Begum and said that they must start the youngster on full-time musical training without delay.

Khadim Husain Khan learnt several ragas and cheezas from Mehboob Khan at different times – usually when the family came down to Atrauli for a month every year from Jaipur. The most beautiful of them is "बेगी आवन कर पार" (again Mehboob Khan’s own composition) in the original Chandrakauns. This raga should not be confused with the popular lehra Chandrakauns, that is, Malkauns with Shudh Nishad, or with Bageshrikauns, which is also occasionally called Chandrakauns. This is the beautiful and traditional raga of the Atrauli gharana that is said to have impressed even Alladiya Khan so much, that he composed a raga himself based on it and called it Sampoorna Malkauns. Among many other cheezas that Khadim Husain Khan learnt directly from Mehboob Khan are "पीहरवा को िबरमायो" in Jog, "आयो अत मतवारो" in Rageshri, "नाद समुंन को है महा किठन रस" in Bhimpalasi, "अलाह कादर" in Goud-Sarang, "मौद मौद मुसाए" in Pancham, "दिरये वा मानस सो" in Bihag, "पिरये वाके पायन सजनी" in Jaunpuri, etc. which are all Mehboob Khan’s own compositions.

Inayat Khan was Khadim Husain Khan’s grandfather, that is, Altaf Husain Khan’s father. He, too, was a grand old man with profound musical knowledge and was highly respected by all the contemporary musicians. It was Inayat Khan’s father’s sister who was given in marriage to the famous Tanras Khan of Delhi gharana.

Khadim Husain Khan has learnt some cheezas from Inayat Khan during his early visits to Atrauli. However, he was then very young and it is his great regret that he could not learn much more from this great man whose knowledge was immense and whose singing style had a special charm about it.

Khadim Husain Khan distinctly remembers the day he learnt two beautiful cheezas in ragas which were almost unknown outside the Atrauli gharana till then. They are "पितया भलो नाही" in Cheta Gouri and "डिरये मोरी मायी" in Maligaura. This incident occurred during the time when all the accomplished ustads of the Agra gharana had come down to Atrauli for attending some function. One day Mohammed Khan, Abdullah Khan, Tasadduq Hussain Khan, Faiyaz Khan, Vilayat Husain Khan and some others called on Inayat Khan. At that time, Inayat Khan was fondling his young grand-children Khadim and Anwar. This must have been in 1915 or thereabouts. The ustads jointly requested the old man to teach all of them a couple of rare ragas that Inayat Khan had learnt from the elders of the Atrauli khandan and which were not known outside the gharana.

Immediately Inayat Khan asked them to sit around him and summoned the tanpuras. He then started singing for them the cheeza in Maligaura in his inimitable style. Each of the younger ustads tried to repeat the raga by turns but not one of them got it quite right for over half an hour, despite Inayat Khan repeating it several times ! Finally, when most of them got it almost right, the old man made young Khadim also repeat it and he succeeded reasonably well despite being so young. The grandfather was delighted ! Later they were all taught Cheta Gouri. Both these ragas greatly impressed all the ustads gathered there and specially Faiyaz Khan who sang these two ragas many times thereafter. Faiyaz Khan used to say often that Inayat Khan was among the greatest ustads he has ever come across.

One cheeza that Khadim Husain Khan learnt directly from his grandfather is the celebrated "मेरो मन िलए जात" in the raga Sohini. He remembers that his grandfather’s bol banaav was unique and unparalleled. All the younger ustads of the Agra and Atrauli gharanas used to imitate the old man quite often in this aspect of singing.

Another ustad from Atrauli who taught a couple of cheezas to Khadim Husain Khan was Munnu Khan. However, Khadim Husain Khan does not remember how exactly he was related to him or to which branch of Atrauli he belonged to. Munnu Khan taught him a beautiful tarana in the raga Shankara and the popular cheeza in Bhimpalasi "आज हँ न आए".

Ghulam Abbas Khan taught almost every ustad of the gharana from his own younger brother Kallan Khan downwards. Khadim Husain Khan too has learnt several traditional cheezas of the gharana from him. Among many, he specially remembers three of Ghulam Abbas Khan’s own compositions, namely, "आलीरी सुन िपया" in Asavari (Komal Rishabh), "अरे कोऊ जाए कहो" in Megh and "डालिरया" in Bhairav Bahar. (The author has heard the last-named one sung in drut laya by some musicians, although the composer himself meant it to be in vilambit ! This is a typical example of the metamorphosis that takes place in music). Khadim Husain Khan learnt most of the cheezas from Ghulam Abbas Khan in Jaipur itself where the ustad used to come quite often to stay with younger brother Kallan Khan.

Tasadduq Husain Khan was Khadim Husain Khan’s khalifa, being the (only) son of Kallan Khan. He too used to teach Kallan Khan’s disciples off and on when the ustad was busy. Among many cheezas that he was taught, he specially remembers three of Tasadduq Husain Khan’s own delightful compositions "कैसे समझाऊँ सखी" in Bihag, "उन िबन मोरा" in Bhatiyar (of Lalit ang) and "अरे मन मान" in Hem Kalyan. These were of course learnt in Jaipur itself.

Mohammed Khan taught most of the younger ustads of the khandan since he was the eldest son of Natthan Khan. Khadim Husain Khan too has learnt many cheezas from his eldest uncle but he specially remembers learning "आली साँज" in Sawani and "जाने अकल सब" in Sawani Kalyan. These were learnt in Agra, where Mohammed Khan used to reside before going to Bombay, during the family's usual stop over there en route to Atrauli from Jaipur.

Even though Abdullah Khan was his adopted father, Khadim Husain Khan did not go and stay with him. However, he has learnt several cheezas from him at different times but the circumstances in which he learnt one of them are quite amusing.

One winter afternoon Abdullah Khan was resting under a tree in the compound of his Agra family house after lunch. Young Khadim chanced to pass by, when Abdullah Khan called him saying : “Khadmu, (for that was the name by which his adopted father always called him) come here and press my feet”. He immediately obeyed and started pressing his feet from the toes upwards. Abdullah Khan had a big paunch and soon young Khadim was virtually on top of it ! Suddenly he innocently remarked : “Mamu, what a big belly you have ! Is it full of cheezas?” Abdullah Khan burst into laughter and said : “Yes, my dear boy. Here, learn one of them.” Thus saying, he taught Khadim Husain Khan the beautiful and very popular dhamar in the raga Bhimpalasi "कैसे तुम चतुर िखलाडी"

Among many other cheezas that Abdullah Khan taught Khadim Husain Khan, special mention must be made of the well-known one in Yaman (or Eman) "एरी आली िपया िबन" which was Abdullah Khan’s own composition. Another Yaman cheeza that Abdullah Khan taught him was "मुकुट पर वारी जाऊँ ". This was a great favourite of Abdullah Khan, as well as Bhaskerbuva Bakhale. A very rare one taught by Abdullah Khan to Khadim Husain Khan is "चमतकार दीदार" in the raga Ramsakh.

The day before Abdullah Khan died, he knew that his end was near, for he was extremely ill. He called for Khadim Husain Khan and told him that he would not live much longer and wished to give his adopted son a ‘parting gift’. Even though he was very ill, with great difficulty Abdullah Khan taught a cheeza in Husseini Todi "तू आयोरे आयोरे" and the very next day he breathed his last. Khadim Husain Khan considers this cheeza very dear and sacred to him.

Since Khadim Husain Khan stayed most of the time with his uncle Vilayat Husain Khan in Bombay, he got the opportunity of learning quite a number of cheezas from him. Some of them were Vilayat Husain Khan’s own compositions. Khadim Husain Khan specially recalls "ए रस कानारे " in Durga, "ए करत हो" in Chhayanat, "का से कहँ" (own) in Kaushi Kanada, "आयोरी जीत राजा रामचन" in Rageshri, "मायीरी मेरो" in Pat Bihag, "आज मग जोवत" (own) in Sawani Kalyan, "घिड पल िछन" (own) in Jog, etc. As Nanne Khan also stayed for many years with Vilayat Husain Khan in Bombay, he taught a lot of students who came to learn from the latter. Khadim Husain Khan learnt numerous cheezas of the gharana from his youngest uncle and he says that the number of cheezas, especially the gharana’s traditional ones, he got from Nanne Khan is next only to what he acquired from Kallan Khan.

Khadim Husain Khan specially remembers three beautiful compositions of Nanne Khan where he used his elders’ pseudonyms. They are "कहा किरए कोऊ हमारा " in Durga (Prem Piya), "ननिदया जागे" in Bhupali (Daras Piya) and the celebrated "ऐसो धीट लंगर" in Shankara (Vinod Piya). All the three are widely sung by the Agra gharana musicians of today.

Faiyaz Khan composed a large number of cheezas, mostly in drut laya, all of which Khadim Husain Khan learnt directly from him at different times and places. Khadim Husain Khan used to provide vocal accompaniment to Faiyaz Khan very often and they were extremely fond of each other. As a matter of fact, Faiyaz Khan usually asked Khadim Husain Khan to tune the tanpuras for him.

Some of the cheezas he learnt were in interesting circumstances. Once Faiyaz Khan was proceeding from Calcutta via Atrauli to Baroda. Khadim Husain Khan was in Atrauli at that time. In the first class compartment of the fast Howrah-Delhi Kalka Mail, the rhythm of the wheels going over the tracks at constant speed for long periods between halts produced a teen-taal-like effect. This inspired Faiyaz Khan to compose two beautiful cheezas. He noted them down on a piece of paper and immediately after he reached Atrauli’s “Mousiqi Manzil” he called for, among all others present there, Khadim Husain Khan and taught him both the cheezas remarking “Khadim will learn them the quickest of all” ! They are "गौवे चरावे" in the raga Shankara and "गरज गरज" in the raga Sur (dasi) Malhar, which are very popular today and sung quite often.

One day, Faiyaz Khan came to Bombay to give a programme. After a full five-hour recital, he returned home at 2.30 a.m. It was his usual practice to catch the early morning Bombay-Ahmedabad Gujarat Express, which left Bombay at about 6 a.m. for Baroda. Since it was already nearing 3 a.m. and he had to leave for the station within a couple of hours, he decided that there was no point in going to bed and that he would try and get some sleep in the train.

After his usual stiff peg of scotch, Faiyaz Khan sat down to eat. Khadim Husain Khan cautiously approached him at about 3.30 a.m., for he too did not go to sleep, and asked Faiyaz Khan whether he could teach him the tirvat in Megh without unduly inconveniencing himself, as he was not going to sleep any way and there was still some time to leave for the railway station. Faiyaz Khan said : “Wah ! Look at the youngster’s enthusiasm for learning a cheeza at this hour of the morning” and immediately proceeded to teach him the tirvat. Of course, the genius that Khadim Husain Khan is, he learnt it in just about ten minutes to the delight of Faiyaz Khan. Faiyaz Khan taught him several other cheezas, most of which were self- composed and very popular today. Among the many are "साजन मोरे घर आ" in Jog (actually composed by Atta Husain Khan), "अब मोरी बात मान ले" in Shudh Sarang, "मै कर आई िपया संग" in Puriya, "मोरे मंदर अब लो" and "नादान अिखयाँ लागी" in Jaijaiwanti, "बाजे मोरी पायिलया" in Barwa,"आए अत धूम धाम" in Megh, "कैसे कर राखूँ" in Sham Kalyan, "तन मन धन" in Gara Kanada, "बालम मोरी छाँड" in Bilaskhani Todi, and others.

Pandit Ganpathrao Manerikar alias Manerikar Master, was a disciple of Natthan Khan and Bhaskerbuva Bakhale and was considered by one and all to be an authority on the old and rare bandishes of the Agra gharana. Several ustads of the gharana have learnt from him. Khadim Husain Khan too learnt over a dozen cheezas from him. "एरी मोरे आये घर सैया" in the raga Khambal Bilawal is a rare one that Khadim Husain Khan learnt from the pandit. A few days before his death Manerikar Master taught Khadim Husain Khan the famous Darbari cheeza "जैसे मोरा जी". He learnt all these in Bombay.

Muzaffar Khan ‘Rangile’ was among the last of the great exponents of the distinguished Rangila gharana. Khadim Husain Khan’s grandmother, that is, Altaf Husain Khan’s mother, was Muzaffar Khan’s sister. Therefore, Muzaffar Khan was Khadim Husain Khan’s direct grand-uncle.

In a Lucknow music conference arranged by Pandit Bhatkhande in 1925, Khadim Husain Khan was present as a young man. Muzaffar Khan ‘Rangile’ was a participant and he asked his young grand-nephew to provide him vocal assistance. At the end of his recital Muzaffar Khan told Khadim Husain Khan that he was quite impressed by his sur-ka-lagaav and general singing style during those short periods when he was allowed to sing. So Muzaffar Khan took young Khadim to the ‘Rangila Camp’ and taught him "ढोलन मेडे घर आवी" and a tarana in Bhimpalasi, in the beautiful Rangila style.

Bashir Khan Aligarhwale was a disciple of Faiyaz Khan. He should not be confused with Mohammed Khan’s son, Bashir Khan. Aligarhwale Bashir Khan taught Khadim Husain Khan the popular Brindavani Sarang cheeza "सगरी उमिरया मोरी बीती जात". This was composed by Bashir Khan himself, using the pseudonym ‘Prem Piya’ in it as a mark of respect for his ustad, Faiyaz Khan.

When Khadim Husain Khan was staying with Vilayat Husain Khan, Alladiya Khan came to stay with them (at Babulnath in Bombay). This gave Khadim Husain Khan an opportunity to learn a few cheezas from the old maestro. He remembers learning "थे मार राजेन" in Dhanashri, "देव देव" in Sawani, "आली मोहे मनावन" in Shudh Kalyan and particularly a dhamar "एरी नन ननन" in Shree.

Aashiq Ali Khan was the son of Mohammed Ali Khan Fatehpuriye alias Miya Manrangji. Khadim Husain Khan says that he was the most handsome musician he has ever seen. While in Jaipur, Aashiq Ali Khan taught him "सरस बुधी तेरी धन धन" in Shukla Bilawal and "पितयाँ रे" in Patdeep. This Patdeep is one of the family of three close ragas, Patdeep, Patdeepki (or Pradipki) and Patdeepak, and should not be confused with the “popular” Patdeep which is nothing but Bhimpalasi with Shudh Nishad.

Aashiq Ali Khan’s son, Machhu Khan, was not a practising musician for he used to lisp. However, Khadim Husain Khan has acquired some vidya even from him while at Jaipur. The beautiful thumri composition of Binda Din Maharaj in Bhairavi "तीखे नैना िचत वन" was taught to Khadim Husain Khan by Machhu Khan.

There was a light classical singer of outstanding ability in Jaipur called Wazir Khan. Kallan Khan always used to encourage his disciples to absorb any beautiful style that appealed to them. Since Wazir Khan’s style was particularly impressive, Khadim Husain Khan learnt from him a Jodhpuri Mand "पना मार थेसूं" and a lovely bandish in the raga Des "लाज तेहारी".

Once, at a wedding celebration in the Jaipur princely family, one of the items was a variety entertainment. Many beautiful girls were dancing and singing at the festival. Suddenly, an old decrepit- looking woman was brought in by somebody on the stage. She was literally penniless and begging with dishevelled hair and ragged clothes. There was an order from one of the princely family that she be asked to sing. When, by interrupting the singing and dancing session, this old lady was asked to sing, the whole audience jeered at her in annoyance but could not stop her from singing because of the princely order. However, the moment she started to sing, the entire audience was completely spellbound. Khadim Husain Khan says that he has never heard such an emotion-charged voice in his life. She sang some Mira bhajans in the Kathiawari style and within minutes the whole crowd went literally into a trance.

That was Nanni Jan of Junagadh, who was once a good singer of Saurashtra; but she lost her only child which made her almost mad and she became like a fakir. Her misfortune, however, made her voice even more emotion-filled but she did not sing for money. She would just roam around the streets and beg for a meal. Kallan Khan took pity on her and gave her shelter and food for a day and at that time Khadim Husain Khan, with the permission of his ustad, begged her to teach him a couple of Kathiawari Mira bhajans, which Nanni Jan did. They are "जंगल ना जोगी" and "लाल बैरागन", both beautiful compositions. When Khadim Husain Khan thinks of her and her haunting voice he too almost goes into a kind of trance even today.

Such were the great masters from whom Khadim Husain Khan acquired vidya. No wonder it is an ocean and his gayaki as well as repertoire so varied and multi-faceted. He can sing alap, dhrupad, dhamar, khayal, thumri, tarana, hori, tirvat, kajri, rasiya, bhajan and even ghazals and Maharashtrian lavanis with felicity and remarkable mastery.

No doubt, he got more vidya from his great ustad Kallan Khan than all the others put together and he owes to Kallan Khan most of what he is today. Yet he invariably makes it a point to acknowledge his teachers even if they have taught him only one cheeza. This shows his respect and regard for his ustads and elders as well as his sincerity and humility. He truly sets an example of the finest traditions of behaviour and conduct towards his seniors, fellow musicians and people in general. One cannot help wishing that there were more people like Khadim Husain Khan, for the world would have been a better place to live in and the musical scene, all the richer. 5. LIFE AS USTAD HIMSELF

Khadim Husain Khan came to Bombay with Vilayat Husain Khan in 1925 with the blessings and good wishes of his great ustad, Kallan Khan, to make a career in Bombay so that he could support his jobless father and family. Bombay was one of the main centres of music in the country and a large number of ustads used to converge there. Khadim Husain Khan came to Bombay with mixed feelings – with a heavy heart on the one hand, having had to leave his family and beloved ustad, and with great hopes on the other, to follow in the footsteps of his distinguished elders like Sher Khan and Natthan Khan who made the Agra gharana very famous in Bombay.

Within a few weeks of his arrival in Bombay, he managed to get his very first shagird by name Bhujang Rao. The monthly fee was fixed at Rs 20. Khadim Husain Khan used to stay with his uncle in a crowded mohalla near Masjid Bunder, while Bhujang Rao stayed near Gowalia Tank, three or four miles away. He could only afford the cheapest mode of transport, which was the now-obsolete electric tramcar. Bhujang Rao was his only student for nearly three years ! Out of the Rs 20 that he was earning per month, he kept Rs 5 for his personal expenses and sent Rs 15 per month to his father at Jaipur. This was not too small a sum in those days, and it helped his family considerably to maintain itself.

After three years, he got a second tuition and this time it was a lady from the Kakodkar family who wanted to learn from him. Being just the second tuition in three years, he gratefully accepted it. The Kakodkar family lived in Girgaum which was somewhat nearer to his home. Being the disciple of the most sureel musician of his generation, Khadim Husain Khan too possessed a very impressive and tuneful voice and a beautiful singing style, and many people walking past Tulsi Building (where the Kakodkars used to live) would linger on to listen to his melodious music. Within a year of starting the Kakodkar tuition, Khadim Husain Khan got seven more talims in the same street, each at Rs 25 per month. That was plenty of money in those days and Khadim Husain Khan started sending Rs. 100 per month to Jaipur to the delight of his family. Thus, by the time he was 25 years old, he became his family’s successful breadwinner.

Around 1928, the family decided to get Khadim Husain Khan married. They chose as his bride, Hasina Begum, the daughter of Munshi Jamal Ahmed Khan, younger brother of his beloved grand-uncle Mehboob Khan “Daras”. Mehboob Khan was no more by then but Khadim Husain Khan could never forget the large number of ragas and cheezas as well as the superb singing style that the great ustad had taught him over a period of many years, almost every time he was in Atrauli. This wedding brought the Agra gharana even closer to the Atrauli gharana.

Soon thereafter, Vilayat Husain Khan and his family went to live for a little while in Belgaum (now Karnataka). His wife was expecting and Vilayat Husain Khan found nobody to look after her properly during the confinement. So he requested his only sister, Faiyazi Begum, and Altaf Husain Khan to come over to Belgaum for this purpose, which they gladly did. However, soon after the child was born to Vilayat Husain Khan’s wife, Altaf Husain Khan’s health took a turn for the worse and Khadim Husain Khan was urgently summoned to Belgaum.

When he knew that his end was near, Altaf Husain Khan called Khadim Husain Khan to his bedside. He told him that since he was the eldest in the family, the entire responsibility of looking after the mother, brothers and sisters was his. Khadim Husain Khan realised it only too well, for he was financially supporting the family from the very time he came to Bombay. Altaf Husain Khan’s last words to Khadim Husain Khan were: “My son, you have been a very good boy and very responsible. I do not know how we would possibly have carried on without your financial support all these years. I know you will continue to look after your mother, brothers and sisters always. My soul will depart in peace because of my confidence and faith in you”. So saying, Altaf Husain Khan passed away in about the year 1930. Khan Saheb with family. Sitting (L to R) : Shamim Ahmed (son-in-law), Khan Saheb, Hasina Begum (wife), Zarina Begum (daughter). Standing (L to R) : Ahsan, Mujib, Mohsin (grandsons)

Khadim Husain Khan immediately had the task of resettling the family and he went about it quite seriously. The younger brother, Anwar Husain Khan, had already become quite a proficient ustad, having also learnt mostly from Kallan Khan ; but young Latafat, who was then in his early teens, did not still have a proper ustad to guide him. Khadim Husain Khan knew that he could not train the youngest brother properly because of the many tuitions he had every day. Therefore he sent young Latafat to Baroda with Anwar Husain Khan so that he could learn from the distinguished ustads of the gharana there, namely, Faiyaz Khan and Tasadduq Husain Khan. The mother and two sisters (both younger than Latafat Husain Khan), he took with him to Bombay.

As years passed, he married off his two sisters and two brothers one by one. The elder of the sisters, Qayyuma Begum, was married to Ghulam Rasool Khan Mathurawale, the elder son of the famous Ustad Kale Khan “Saras Piya” of the Mathura gharana. Saras Piya was a contemporary and friend of Daras Piya and they used to compose cheezas in sawaal-jawaab fashion at one time. Ghulam Rasool Khan is an ace harmonium player and accompanied Faiyaz Khan for several years. He still lives in his old house in Baroda on Ustad Faiyaz Khan Road. The younger sister was married to Azmat Husain Khan, son of Khairat Ali Khan of the second Atrauli gharana. Azmat Husain Khan had most of his talim from his own khandan and from his maternal uncle, Altaf Husain Khan Khurjawale. Azmat Husain Khan was a fine musician who represented not only the Atrauli (second) and Khurja gharanas but to some extent the Agra gharana too, because of his close association with Vilayat Husain Khan who was married to Azmat Husain Khan’s sister.

Anwar Husain Khan was married to the granddaughter of Ahmed Khan, his father’s elder brother, while Latafat Husain Khan married the daughter of Vilayat Husain Khan.

Almost all the expenses for the four weddings were naturally borne by Khadim Husain Khan and he was able to do so only by sheer hard work and by leading a very frugal life, thereby saving up as much as possible. Thus, he diligently discharged his main responsibilities to the family with the determination of a true eldest son.

By then Khadim Husain Khan had became a very famous ustad. He was often called to various places to perform; but a brilliant teacher he always continued to be. With such a heavy responsibility put on his young shoulders from the very day he set out to make a career for himself, Khadim Husain Khan’s single constant worry was how to get a steady and regular income. Princely patronage for music was there no more ; therefore he just could not afford to neglect his tuitions, which was the only regular source of income then, in preference to the concert platform. Thus it was that Faiyaz Khan, who belonged to the same khandan, musical training and traditions, took almost entirely to the concert platform, for he had no particular worries or responsibilities. On the other hand, the equally distinguished Khadim Husain Khan had to depend heavily on tuitions for his very existence. Faiyaz Khan made the listeners richer by performing his delightful multi- faceted gayaki in its most colourful form, while Khadim Husain Khan not only groomed disciples into fine musicians but also brought music into innumerable homes in Bombay, some of which had never known what classical music was till he set foot in them.

It was freely said in those days that the Agra gharana ustads, and particularly the great trio of Vilayat Husain Khan, Khadim Husain Khan and Anwar Husain Khan, brought music to more homes in Bombay than all the other ustads put together. It was also said, and probably rightly so, that there was not a street in the (old) Bombay city where an Agra gharana ustad, specially one or more of the great trio, had not given talim.

Khadim Husain Khan’s main and most outstanding disciple from within the khandan is undoubtedly his younger brother Latafat Husain Khan. Khadim Husain Khan literally brought him up as his own son, first because he himself had no children for many years and, secondly, because their age difference was about 15 years. Initially, Khadim Husain Khan had taught young Latafat a fair amount of music. However, Altaf Husain Khan’s death necessitated Latafat Husain Khan to be sent to Baroda. Within a couple of years, however, Khadim Husain Khan realised that young Latafat was not keeping good health and consequently he was not progressing sufficiently in music. So he went to Baroda and brought the brother back to Bombay and took complete charge of grooming him. For about seven years, Khadim Husain Khan took the brother daily to the rooms of one of his disciples (at Kumbharwada) and gave him rigorous and intense talim for many hours a day with strict discipline. Thus he groomed Latafat Husain Khan into the ace performer of the gharana and one of the top singers of the country. Latafat Husain Khan is currently an ustad on the faculty of the ITC-Sangeet Research Academy in Calcutta, which is doing yeoman’s service in the cause of traditional classical music.

Others from the khandan whom Khadim Husain Khan has taught are nephews Shafi Ahmed Khan and Qamar Mohammed Khan (both stay in Aligarh and teach in the university there) ; Amanat Ali (youngest uncle Nanne Khan’s son) and, recently, he has started training Ghulam Hasnain alias Raja Miya, the eldest son of his brother Anwar Husain Khan. It is rather unfortunate for the khandan that none of Latafat Husain Khan’s sons seem to be interested in learning music even from their distinguished father.

Khadim Husain Khan’s first disciple outside the khandan who really achieved a “class” was Vatsala Kumthekar. Vatsala’s mother, finding the daughter very talented, came to Bombay and approached some well-known ustads to teach her. All of them, no doubt, agreed to do so, but stipulated sums varying from Rs 2000 to Rs 5000 as the initial charge for ganda-bandhan plus a monthly fee. The poor lady could not dream of spending such money, whatever the cause, for they were literally astronomical sums for her. Indeed, in the ‘30s, they were very substantial amounts and only the very rich could think of that kind of money. The mother and daughter returned to their hometown, Belgaum, much disappointed.

One day, Khadim Husain Khan happened to visit Belgaum and called on the uncle, Vilayat Husain Khan. Immediately the latter sent for Vatsala’s mother and suggested Khadim Husain Khan as the ideal teacher for her daughter. Not having heard the name before, the lady politely declined the offer.

After a few weeks, Vatsala and her mother went to Bombay to visit a distant relation. As they approached the house, they heard an extremely sureel ustad teaching someone inside. They were quite impressed and, not wanting to interrupt the beautiful flow of music, they stood outside for quite a long time feasting their ears. Vatsala told her mother that here was an ustad from whom she would very much like to learn. Cautiously, they went inside to see who the ustad was. To their astonishment, they found that it was the same Khadim Husain Khan whom they had declined at Belgaum ! The mother and her daughter immediately prostrated themselves before him, begged his forgiveness and beseeched him to consider teaching Vatsala. However, the mother sadly told Khadim Husain Khan that they were not at all rich and could not afford any exorbitant fees for the ganda. The kind hearted ustad that Khadim Husain Khan has always been, he agreed to teach Vatsala gladly and told them that they could pay him anything they could afford. Vatsala was delighted and the ganda-bandhan was very soon performed. With a lovely flexible voice as well as a very intelligent mind, Vatsala soon picked up the beautiful aspects of the gayaki from Khadim Husain Khan and became an extremely proficient and accomplished musician in a fairly short time. Unfortunately, her very premature death deprived the ustad and the music world of a really brilliant singer who could easily have equalled any of the great woman vocalists of her time, had she lived longer.

Khadim Husain Khan continued to train numerous students all over Bombay and several of them have distinguished themselves in the musical firmament. The first name that comes to one’s mind after Vatsala Kumthekar, among Khadim Husain Khan’s outstanding disciples, is that of Krishna Udyavarkar. She too had a phenomenal ascent in her musical career and became an accomplished vocalist while still in her twenties. She was a close second to Vatsala but she suddenly gave up singing altogether just when she was touching her peak.

Other well-known names among the large number of Khadim Husain Khan’s disciples are Jyotsna Bhole, Saraswatibai Phatarphekar (who also learnt from Anwar Husain Khan), Mira Badkar, Kusum Warawdekar, Srikrishna (Baban) Haldankar (who has probably received the maximum vidya from Khadim Husain Khan), Mohan Chikermane, Sridhar Parsekar, Govindrao Agni (a teacher in the Bombay University Music Centre), Prahlad Ganu, Anant Damle and others.

There are numerous others who have been trained by Khadim Husain Khan into fine performers but have learnt music for their own satisfaction and appreciation and preferred to remain away from the concert platform. Notable among them are Sharda Mukerji (now Governor of Gujarat), Nilima Kilachand, Charubai Jhaveri, Kumud Tope, Ahilyabai Punde, Nirmala Khatau, Nana Rajadhyaksha and Jayanand Khira. Khadim Husain Khan has also taught film personalities like Mukesh, Suraiya, Durga Khote, Madhubala and Surendra.

Among his more recent students, that is, those who started learning from him in the '70s, Lalith Rao is the most prominent. In fact she was so delighted to have Khadim Husain Khan as her ustad that she boldly eschewed a very bright and lucrative career in Engineering, in which she had specialised abroad, and took up music as her full-time pursuit, even though it was only one of her many childhood hobbies. Within a couple of years, Khadim Husain Khan’s careful, brilliant and loving talim transformed Lalith Rao from a “drawing-room singer” into a public concert artiste. There are several youngsters like Padmaja Punde, whom Khadim Husain Khan is grooming even today who, show promise.

The main difference between Khadim Husain Khan and other teachers is summed up in the words of one of his admirers: “There are a lot of fine teachers of music. Some are good only for teaching raw pupils up to the intermediate stage, while others are excellent only to graduate the intermediates into B.A. and M.A. Khadim Husain Khan, however, is probably the only teacher capable and competent to teach anyone from ABC to Ph.D.”.

Apart from teaching his students a variety of ragas and almost every aspect of classical music that fits each student’s own musical make-up, one very notable feature of Khadim Husain Khan’s talim is his regularity and punctuality. Very rarely does he miss his tuitions unless bad health or totally unavoidable circumstances prevent him. It was the usual saying that Khadim Husain Khan was so punctual that one could correct one’s watch by his arrival ! He is a very simple man and, till very recently, he would only travel by bus anywhere (even though some of his dependents would run about in taxis all over) and yet manage to reach every home on the dot. It is amazing how he did this. Even now he goes for some of his tuitions by bus, despite the fact that he is 75.

Kallan Khan had advised him to abstain from drinking. He has stuck to this advice all his life and has never touched alcohol even though, on many occasions, everyone present was drinking and coaxing him to “join the crowd”. Khadim Husain Khan recalls one particular incident many years ago. The soft drink, VIMTO, had just been introduced in the market and, during one gathering of musicians, Faiyaz Khan, knowing Khadim Husain Khan’s habits, had specially ordered some VIMTOS for him. Hard drinks were served all round, including rum with VIMTO to some, which very much resembled the plain VIMTO served to him. Everyone around assured Khadim Husain Khan that his glass did not have a drop of alcohol.

After he had consumed most of his VIMTO, Faiyaz Khan said to him with a straight face: “Khadim, today you have at last joined the ranks of us sinners”. Suddenly, Khadim Husain Khan felt his head spinning and he was getting intoxicated ! All had a hearty laugh and Faiyaz Khan then assured him that all he had had was plain VIMTO which contained as much alcohol as rain-water ! Despite all these incidents, and sometimes even taunts, he has remained a very strict teetotaller all his life.

Khadim Husain Khan used to smoke occasionally and that too was restricted to two cigarettes a day - one after lunch and the other after dinner. For some years now he has totally given up even this limited “luxury”. He does not indulge in even the inseparable companions of most musicians, the paan and tobacco, nor even ordinary paan ! In many ways, therefore, Khadim Husain Khan is a true puritan.

Kallan Khan had told him to be strictly celibate during his bachelorhood and to be absolutely faithful to his wife once he was married. He has meticulously stuck to this advice also all his life. Khadim Husain Khan was married at a fairly young age in deference to the wishes of the elders in his family. For many years a child was not born to them. After about 10 years it became almost certain that they could not have a child. At that stage apart from many others, even his own wife advised him to take a second wife because, in line with their code and law, a man could straightaway take a second wife, if his first could not bear him a child. However, the parting words of his ustad, that he should be absolutely faithful to his wife, were not uttered in vain. Khadim Husain Khan told his wife that he would rather remain childless than go against his ustad’s words and take another wife.

Instead, they continuously prayed for a child but their prayers remained unanswered for nearly 17 years. It was only in 1945 that his wife, Hasina Begum, gave birth to a bonny girl who was named Zarina. Zarina is their only child and has been brought up with great love and affection by the doting parents.

Khadim Husain Khan is one ustad who practices what he preaches and preaches what he practices. He never, never criticises or finds fault with any singer’s music or rendering, no matter how mediocre he or she may be. Instead, he listens to and genuinely encourages every musician and tries to see only the good points of the recital. His cardinal principle is to appreciate the good side of every musician and he constantly advises all his disciples to do so too. He emphasizes the fact that a really good musician must be a student all his life and must constantly try to absorb the aesthetic aspects of every gharana or singing style if progress is to be made and stagnation avoided. This being his constant advice, his disciples automatically tend to do so and become proficient in various aspects of classical music in a comparatively short time.

It is a pleasure to see Khadim Husain Khan sitting through the recitals of all kinds of musicians and listening to them intently. Some so-called top musicians of today would consider such behaviour infra dig. But Khadim Husain Khan is made of different stuff and cannot be classed with such types of “top musicians” because he is an ustad who learnt from the 19th century greats and his whole attitude to music and life is different from what it is today. Thus, he rises far above the petty gharana jealousies and other narrow-minded ideas. He rarely teaches a disciple for more than 45 minutes at a time, for he believes in the quality and not the quantity of talim. It was a common belief at one time among aspiring musicians, that it is much better to go to a pandit to learn music quickly rather than to an ustad, for an ustad would take more than six months to teach one raga. Indeed so, for one does hear of ustads in those days who would teach a disciple just one taan from morning till evening ! Khadim Husain Khan tells the story of a sarangia who was employed by an ustad in one of his disciples’ houses to accompany him during the talim. The talim started in the raga Puriya and went on and on for more than six months and yet there was no sign of a change in the raga. Finally, the sarangia got so fed up that he begged the ustad to excuse him from coming for the talim again for “hereafter there will either be Puriya in this house or me, not both !”.

Khadim Husain Khan’s talim is a far cry from this. He hardly teaches anyone for more than 45 minutes at a time. However, in that time, he clearly and beautifully teaches the disciple what another ustad would probably take three or four hours to teach. The clear, precise way in which he explains the differences between close ragas is indeed remarkable. He never learnt any theory of music, for there was no such thing in those days ; so he does not have any belief or respect for theory. However, his ideas of music in general, and ragas in particular, are so crystal clear that it invariably brings to one’s mind the famous words of an eminent ustad to a musical theoretician : “There is a lot of theory in our music, but I am not sure if I can find music in your theory !”. Quite so, for theory was evolved from the beautiful music of the old-time greats, but pleasing and aesthetic music hasn’t exactly emanated from theory.

Khadim Husain Khan is one of those who have conclusively disproved the so-called belief that the Agra gayaki is suitable only for masculine voices. Apart from his younger brother Latafat Husain Khan and a few others, his most outstanding students have been women. In fact, many feel that the belief itself seems to be a baseless canard, probably insinuated by some jealous musicians. It is well known that two of the all-time greats of classical music among women - Zohrabai Agrewali and Bablibai - were both from the Agra gharana (mainly 19th century). In this century, there are a host of Khadim Husain Khan’s and other Agra ustads’ women disciples who are very popular musicians, some of whom have been named earlier. Khadim Husain Khan, particularly, has the knack of teaching only those angs or aspects of music that are fully compatible with the student’s musical make-up and he makes sure that a woman musician avoids all the masculine angs of the gayaki and vice versa. This is one of the specialities of Khadim Husain Khan that stands out.

Khadim Husain Khan’s whole approach to talim is unique. To a student who knows nothing of music, he starts from scratch and goes on slowly, surely and methodically from first principles of music to singing khayals and other forms. To students who have a style of their own, learnt from other gurus, he only teaches the perfect and accurate chalan or the basic form of ragas, the correct bandishes, the beautiful and appropriate sur-ka-lagaav and the aesthetics and niceties of classical music in general. However, he leaves the rest to the students, especially the basic style of singing, so that they can develop in their own way in the form that suits them best for blossoming forth. It will thus be seen that no two students of Khadim Husain Khan sing alike, even though there is the unmistakable stamp of the gharana in every one. What he encourages most is the need to absorb the aesthetics of other gharanas, provided they conform to the basic tenets of the Agra gharana. However, he maintains that the Agra gharana (like the Gwalior gharana) is the father of most singing styles in vogue, so that any ang blends into the Agra gayaki perfectly well as long as there is purity of ragas, aesthetics in singing and no gimmickry.

All this is known to his students and those closely associated with him. What many people do not realise is that, just by listening to him speak, teach and sing long enough (without actually learning from him) one’s level of understanding and appreciation is raised very considerably. The author can claim to be in that category. The author’s only “complaint” is that by associating himself quite long with Khadim Husain Khan and his outstanding gayaki, his appreciation of music has undergone such a radical change in the last few years that he can no longer appreciate many musicians whom he once almost used to adore, probably because of their gimmicks. Once the real aesthetics in classical music are appreciated, the gimmicks that make many musicians very popular with the galleries can be spotted from a mile and they leave the initiated listener cold. 6. KHAN SAHEB’S REMINISCENCES

Like all old-time ustads, Khadim Husain Khan used to meet and listen to numerous musicians of almost every gharana and has therefore heard and talked to most of the great musicians of this century. The author has never heard Khadim Husain Khan criticise any musician or gharana maliciously and he always has a good word for almost every musician. No doubt, the musical world has, like every other sphere, produced many "bad eggs". After all, it takes all sorts to make the world. There have been a few musicians, and good singers at that, whose main occupation apparently was to criticise and find fault with others. Very rarely does Khadim Husain Khan talk of such musicians and, when he does so "confidentially" to some of his close associates, he invariably slaps both his cheeks hard and says: "May Allah forgive me for saying these things about others". Such is his humility.

Since Khadim Husain Khan has heard and spoken to great musicians of this century, an opportunity that only an extremely small fraction of musicians and music lovers of today have had, it will be interesting to know what one great ustad thought of other great ustads and one's experiences with and reminiscences of them.

Since the ustads of his own khandan have been described in earlier chapters, his reminiscences of these ustads have been avoided except for two incidents about Faiyaz Khan which are well worth mentioning. The order in which the musicians have been described here is purely arbitrary and has no relevance whatsoever to their age, seniority or stature in music.

Abdul Karim Khan was among the most sureel musicians that Khadim Husain Khan has heard. He has listened to Abdul Karim Khan several times and has thoroughly enjoyed his intensely tuneful and melodious khayals and thumris. He specially talks of his "िपया िबन नही आवत चैन" and "जमुना के तीर" as his masterpieces.

Khadim Husain Khan admits that Rambhau Kundgolkar, alias Sawai Gandharva, did not possess a voice as melodious as that of his guru, Abdul Karim Khan. However, once he got going, he was extremely sureel and his music touched the heart.

Once Sawai Gandharva approached Khadim Husain Khan to teach him the famous Adana composition "धरत लंका िबलंका". This was supposedly composed to impress Aurangazeb, in vain though, when he decided to banish music from his empire ! When Khadim Husain Khan told Sawai Gandharva that he was too junior an ustad to teach an eminent and senior musician like him, Sawai Gandharva said: "Khan Saheb, please do not say that. I have learnt and derived immense benefit from your uncle, the great Abdullah Khan Saheb; so you are almost like a khalifa to me and I shall deem it a privilege to learn some cheezas from you". When Khadim Husain Khan heard this, he gladly taught Sawai Gandharva whatever he wanted to learn from him.

Khadim Husain Khan also taught some cheezas to Hirabai Barodekar, another famous Kirana veteran, for the drama "MIRA-BAI". Among them is the celebrated Bhimpalasi composition "आज हँ न आए".

'Dada' Alladiya Khan, as Khadim Husain Khan used to call him affectionately, was an outstanding musician. Khadim Husain Khan was highly impressed by the complex and forceful taan patterns that were abundant in Alladiya Khan's singing. Even at an advanced age, Alladiya Khan's taans retained sur and complexity. Although Alladiya Khan used to admit that most of his talim was in the dhrupad tradition, Khadim Husain Khan has never heard Alladiya Khan singing dhrupad or dhamar. However, Alladiya Khan has taught him a beautiful dhamar in the raga Shree.

There was a time when Alladiya Khan used to stay in the same flat (at Babulnath) where Vilayat Husain Khan and Khadim Husain Khan were residing. Vilayat Husain Khan's wife, who was Azmat Husain Khan's sister, came from Alladiya Khan's Atrauli khandan. Therefore, all the ustads had deep love and affection for each other. Dada Alladiya Khan, being the seniormost in age, was respected by all.

One day Khadim Husain Khan approached Alladiya Khan and said: "Dadaji, will you give me the benefit of some of your vidya?" Immediately Alladiya Khan touched both his ears and stood up and said: "Bhai Khadim Husain, don't say that. The vidya that I possess is all yours !" Khadim Husain Khan was highly perplexed and almost scared when he heard these totally unexpected words from the old man. He could not have been joking because his face and manner were both serious and earnest. Khadim Husain Khan immediately jumped up and said: "Dadaji, I am very sorry if I have upset you or inadvertently said something that might have offended you; but I just do not understand the statement you made now". Alladiya Khan told Khadim Husain Khan to sit down and said: "I meant every word of what I said, because the great ustad who first kept a tanpura on my shoulders (that is, initiated me into music) was your direct forefather, Munshi Ghulam Husain". It was only thereafter that Khadim Husain Khan came to know that the Munshi was his great grand-uncle. Later, Alladiya Khan gladly taught Khadim Husain Khan some cheezas in Dhanashri, Shudh Kalyan, Sawani, etc. in addition to the dhamar in Shree.

This incident was narrated by Khadim Husain Khan in 1970 to Kesarbai Kerkar, an outstanding disciple of Alladiya Khan, to her great surprise. It was, however, Khadim Husain Khan's turn to be surprised when Kesarbai replied: "I have also derived much benefit by listening to musicians of your khandan, particularly your uncle Faiyaz Khan. These days I am too old to go for concerts and the only music I hear is from the radio; however, even today, I make it a point not to miss a single radio concert of yours, because it is only there that I see true vidya !".

Khadim Husain Khan says that Kudratulla Khan, one of the last exponents of the distinguished Rangila gharana, was among the most outstanding musicians. His vilambit, barhat, phirat, taan and all other aspects of singing, and particularly his bandishes, were most impressive. At the time Khadim Husain Khan saw him, he was quite old and literally bent like a bow with age and could walk only with the aid of a stout stick. Yet, the moment he started singing everyone would be transformed into a different world and plane altogether. Such was the outstanding quality of his music.

To illustrate the greatness of Kudratulla Khan, Khadim Husain Khan narrates an incident. Sometime in the late '20s, Kudratulla Khan died. The first to bring this news home was Vilayat Husain Khan, who asked young Khadim to break the bad news to Alladiya Khan. Khadim Husain Khan went to the old man and said: "Dadaji, I am very sorry to tell you that Kudratulla Khan is dead". After a moment's silence Alladiya Khan replied: "No, my son, Kudratulla Khan is not dead; music is dead with his departure !”.

The great Tanras Khan was dead long before Khadim Husain Khan was born but Khadim Husain Khan has heard and appreciated the descendants of Tanras Khan quite often, notably his son Umrao Khan.

It has been said in an earlier chapter that Tanras Khan was married to the daughter of Khadim Husain Khan's grandfather's grandfather, Hidayat Khan. The incident relating to this wedding is interesting and almost unbelievable.

Hidayat Khan was a relatively simple and poor musician of Atrauli while Tanras Khan came from the family which belonged to the Mughul durbar. The day before the wedding Hidayat Khan came to know that Tanras Khan and his huge baraat were leaving Delhi for Atrauli on elephants and horses. He was stunned ! How was he, a poor man, to feed such a baraat ? He could do nothing except to go weeping straight to the dargah of the patron saint of the Atrauli khandan, Hazrat Shah Faiyaz Saheb Rehmatullah Aleh. There he went and wept and prayed for help. He went on praying at the dargah and fell asleep there. At night he had a dream in which the saint appeared and told him not to worry for all would be well. He woke up suddenly and found it was dawn and, not quite believing the dream he had, rushed home. On the way he found many people, most of them owners of the various shops in the local market, running towards him saying: "Miya Hidayat Khan, where were you all this time? We have been looking for you all over the place. Don't you know that the baraat is expected shortly ? Come to our shops and take whatever you like. It is all free for you. We must all join together and celebrate a grand wedding for your daughter. Isn't it a matter of izzat for all Atrauli?" So saying they loaded Hidayat Khan with tons of grain, vegetables, meat, ghee, spices and what not including sugarcane for the elephants and gram and grass for the horses. The wedding was thus celebrated on a grand scale to the great satisfaction of the groom's party.

This incident is true and the famous Hazratji is the family saint of Khadim Husain Khan and he visits the dargah every time he goes to Atrauli. Tanras Khan's sons, Umrao Khan, Ghulam Ghous Khan and their descendants are therefore the cousins of all the Atrauli ustads including Khadim Husain Khan.

Karamat Khan was an outstanding dhrupadiya of Jaipur and was the first ustad of Vilayat Husain Khan. Khadim Husain Khan got several opportunities to listen to this great dhrupadiya during his Jaipur days and he says that Karamat Khan is the finest dhrupadiya he has ever heard. His alaps were like the playing of the been - soft, majestic, methodical and extremely tuneful, with the most perfect meends. As far as layakari is concerned, Karamat Khan was matchless. All his tihayis were on-the-spot improvisations, nothing pre- composed. Except probably for the very knowledgeable Agra gharana ustads, it is common among most dhrupad and dhamar singers to pre-compose tihayis the way instrumentalists do. Karamat Khan was an outstanding exception and a class by himself, being a master of both alapchari and layakari in dhrupad singing. To Karamat Khan goes the unique distinction (believe it or not) of producing rain with music on a cloudless day at the Maharaja's request - the only known case in this century, Khadim Husain Khan being present on that occasion.

Shabbu Khan was Tanras Khan's sister's son but his father came from Sikrandrabad. Thus Shabbu Khan belonged both to the Delhi and Rangila gharanas. Khadim Husain Khan says that Shabbu Khan's phirat was something quite unimaginable and almost out of this world. When Shabbu Khan got into a good mood and started his phirats, most sarangias would actually "give up" and put their instruments down lest they should go out of tune (besur) if they tried to follow Shabbu Khan. He was considered to be among the finest musicians of his time.

Faiyaz Khan has been described in an earlier chapter at length. However, there are several incidents in his life which put him in a class all his own. Khadim Husain Khan's experiences and reminiscences as well as praise for Faiyaz Khan are almost unending and rightly so. There is one incident which stands out and gives an idea of Faiyaz Khan's sensitivity and judgement of his audiences and another his mastery over even folk styles of singing.

At a music conference arranged in Kaiser Bagh, Lucknow in 1925 by Bhatkhande, every musician of some name or fame was invited to perform. The conference went on non-stop for many days. Faiyaz Khan's turn came on the sixth or seventh day. By then the audience, not used to hearing so much music all at once, was extremely quiet and evidently bored and hardly gave any encouragement or response even to the famous singers. It was at that point one morning that Faiyaz Khan's turn came. Young Khadim was also with him. The previous dozen-odd musicians had all performed either khayals or dhamars. After the tanpuras were tuned, Faiyaz Khan turned to Khadim Husain Khan and said in a low voice: "Khadim, mark my words, today Faiyaz will show the people something new and change their entire mood”.

Faiyaz Khan straightaway started the celebrated dadra in Bhairavi "बनाओ बितयाँ". Within a few seconds the audience stirred and in minutes "Wah, Wahs" started and everyone was suddenly wide awake. When Faiyaz Khan reached the antara "वही जाओ जहाँ जगे सारी रितयाँ" in his inimitable style and characteristic gestures with his hands, the audience roared in ecstasy and pleasure and the entire mood of the crowd was different from then on. Faiyaz Khan had an uncanny knack of judging the mood of any audience and giving them exactly the type of music they liked best. The "Choumukhi Gawaiya" that he was, his repertoire comprised every type of classical and semi-classical style of music to suit any audience.

Khadim Husain Khan recalls another incident one morning at Atrauli when Faiyaz Khan was practising the rasiya, a folk theme that is indigenous to the Braj areas of U.P. comprising Mathura, Vrindavan, etc. When Faiyaz Khan was singing it, some cowherds were passing by with their cattle to take them for grazing. This was at about 9 or 9.30 a.m. They stopped to listen to the rasiya since the style of music was very much after their own and touched their hearts. It was only around noon that the cowherds suddenly realised that they had completely shirked their duty and sat in a trance listening to Faiyaz Khan. They then ran away from there but not before telling Faiyaz Khan what he had done to them !

There are numerous such incidents that Khadim Husain Khan can relate but they are too many to narrate here.

Khadim Husain Khan remembers with pleasure listening to the two great dhrupadiya brothers, Allabande Khan and Zakhrudddin Khan, who were the grandsons of the legendary "Pandit" Behram Khan Saharanpurwale, a very close and dear friend of Ghagge Khudabaksh at the Jaipur durbar. (Behram Khan was given the title of 'Pandit' because he was not only a very knowledgeable ustad but a great Sanskrit scholar).

Allabande Khan had a sweet and melodious voice while Zakhrudin Khan had a powerful and booming voice. Singing together in jugalbandi fashion, they formed an ideal and impressive pair each supplementing the other. Khadim Husain Khan believes that the real art of jugalbandi singing started with these two brothers. Their alapchari was highly methodical and most impressive. It is a matter of interest that Allabande Khan was the grandfather of the well-known contemporary musicians Dagar Bandhu (both senior and junior) and Zakhruddin Khan was the grandfather of Zia Mohiuddin Dagar beenkar and his brother Zia Fareeduddin Dagar dhrupadiya.

The great musician Puttan Khan Atrauliwale, belonged to the Nauhari branch of the Atrauli gharana and Khadim Husain Khan was fortunate enough to hear him many times. His speciality was the barhat ang in khayal singing, which he used to perform with great ease, skill and felicity. Just as sarangias used to 'give up' during Shabbu Khan's phirats, they found it extremely difficult to follow the barhat of Puttan Khan. The ease with which he would skim over notes, some widely separated from each other, had to be heard to be believed. Puttan Khan had few equals in this art.

As mentioned earlier, Muzaffar Khan of the Rangila or Sikandrabad gharana was Khadim Husain Khan's paternal grandmother's brother, that is, Inayat Khan's brother-in-law. Khadim Husain Khan heard him only a couple of times, notably at Bhatkhande's conference, where he had the privilege of accompanying Muzaffar Khan on the tanpura. Like Kudratulla Khan, Muzaffar Khan was also an outstanding Rangila gharana musician and a master of almost every aspect of khayal singing.

Muzaffar Khan can be considered to be the last practising classical musician of the Rangila gharana, even though many people quite erroneously think that Agra gharana's Faiyaz Khan sang the Rangila style. As Muzaffar Khan's descendants, son Munawwar Khan and grandson Hayat Khan, took to the qawwali even though initially trained in the khayal style of the Rangila gayaki, the Rangila gharana can be said to have become extinct after the death of Muzaffar Khan in the '30s.

Khadim Husain Khan has only hazy memories of seeing Mohammed Ali Khan Fatehpuriye, alias Miya Manrangji, as he was only 4 or 5 years old at that time. However, he remembers that Manrangji was very fair and handsome even at a very advanced age but was blind. Although he never got a chance to hear Manrangji sing, Khadim Husain Khan had the opportunity of listening to his sons Aashiq Ali Khan and Lallan Khan quite a bit. It was obvious to Khadim Husain Khan from their singing that Miya Manrangji added a new dimension to khayal singing. The compositions of Manrangji are indeed outstanding. Both the sons of Manrangji were fair and handsome like their father, but Aashiq Ali Khan was particularly so.

Khadim Husain Khan had the opportunity of listening to Alibaksh Khan Kasoorwale and his son 'Bade' Ghulam Ali Khan several times. Both were tayyar and sureel musicians but Khadim Husain Khan was particularly impressed by the clarity in their rendering of sargams. Khadim Husain Khan feels that it was the Patiala and other Punjab gharana ustads who brought the correct singing of sargams into vogue in khayal singing. In earlier days sargam singing was more or less restricted to the talim and riyaz sessions at home only and were generally considered taboo in concerts.

Khadim Husain Khan states that the sargam singing of Alibaksh Khan and Ghulam Ali Khan had a particular charm about it but he laments that many singers of today have degraded sargam singing firstly by indulging in excessive overdoses to the extent of total monotony and secondly by bringing in unaesthetic meends which make them sound "bhayanak", to quote his own words. Unless the note pronounced and sung are exactly the same, which means meends have no place, sargam singing becomes a meaningless, incorrect, anaesthetic and futile exercise, which is best avoided altogether, according to Khadim Husain Khan.

Khadim Husain Khan has heard Mushtaq Husain Khan of Rampur several times. He too was a tayyar musician and his speciality was the singing of beautiful sapaat taans which went over two or three octaves with ease. Of all his facets of singing, Khadim Husain Khan was particularly impressed with his barhat which was reminiscent of the characteristic style of Puttan Khan Atrauliwale. This was naturally so, because Mushtaq Husain Khan was the son of Puttan Khan's sister Hakiman Begum and, indeed, it was Puttan Khan who gave him the talim in the barhat ang. Later, of course, he learnt from Inayat Husain Khan Sahaswanwale for many years, but he retained the characteristic style of Puttan Khan.

Khadim Husain Khan says that of all the stringed instruments he likes to listen most to the been (provided, of course, it is played properly). Of all the numerous beenkars that he has heard, the great Murad Khan easily stands out as the best. The circumstances in which he heard Murad Khan playing the been are interesting.

Murad Khan used to stay in Bombay in the same general locality where Khadim Husain Khan was sharing the rooms with Vilayat Husain Khan (in Masjid Galli). Khadim Husain Khan had often expressed to Vilayat Husain Khan the wish that he would like to hear Murad Khan, about whom everyone was speaking very highly. For nearly three years this opportunity did not come. One afternoon, when Khadim Husain Khan expressed the same wish for the umpteenth time, Vilayat Husain Khan suddenly said : "Dress up, let us visit Murad Khan Saheb".

As soon as Vilayat Husain Khan and Khadim Husain Khan reached Murad Khan's room, the latter got up and welcomed them and treated them to tea and refreshments. Then Murad Khan asked Vilayat Husain Khan whether there was any special reason for the visit. On being told by Vilayat Husain Khan that his nephew very much wanted to listen to him playing the been, Murad Khan said: "Arré Bhai, I am well past my prime and these days I only play a little, just for my own satisfaction, but I do not give any concerts. However, when a young man wishes to hear me how can I disappoint him? Anyway, it is almost time for my daily hour of practice".

Saying so, Murad Khan took out his ancient been, tuned it quickly but perfectly and commenced playing Bhimpalasi. Within minutes, Khadim Husain Khan's hair started standing on its end and he was so thrilled by the intense melody and tunefulness, the soft touch, the poignant meends and the easy-paced graceful flow of music from the been that he completely lost himself in it. How that one hour passed is something he cannot express in words. All he can say is that it was divine, out-of-this-world music that literally sent him into a trance, the kind of which he says he has never heard before or since.

Among sitar players the most outstanding instrumentalists he has heard are the famous duo Kallu-Hafeez of the Seniya tradition. He heard them while at Jaipur and he compares their sitar playing to the gentle and soothing patter of falling rain. They were also extremely sureel. The real name of Kallu was Nihalsen who was a court musician at Jaipur, while Fida Husain was the real name of Hafeez and he was attached to the court at Rampur.

As is well known, the Seniya musicians are direct descendants of Tansen and Khadim Husain Khan had the privilege of going through a very ancient manual called "Sur Sagar" at the residence of Nihalsen Kallu at Jaipur. This text is believed to have been written soon after Tansen's death by his son or grandson describing various incidents in Tansen's life. It was such an old manual that it was very difficult even to turn its pages and unless great care was taken each page would crumble as soon as one touched it. It was an heirloom of the Seniya khandan and Khadim Husain Khan read through a portion of it that was open. It narrated a story about one of Tansen's many accomplishments but the narration sounds so incredible in today's context that the author feels that it is best not reproduced here. (It is even more bizarre than the story of the ragas Deepak and Megh Malhar narrated in the second chapter !) If even a small part of the accomplishments attributed to Tansen is demonstrated by anyone today, he would be called a godman by most and a magician or even a trickster by a few !

In connexion with Baba Allauddin Khan also, Khadim Husain Khan recalls the 1925 Kaiser Bagh conference of Bhatkhande. On that occasion, Baba played on the violin and he was accompanied on the tabla by one Biroo Mishra. Biroo Mishra was a tabla wizard and was often called Biroo Khan. The figures on the stage were a study in contrast - Baba was fairly stout and stocky while Biroo was short, extremely thin and very small-made. Looking at him (Biroo), one would not think that he could even play on the tabla for he looked so weak.

The concert started and after the usual alap and slow gat, Baba proceeded to play the gat in fast laya. Baba went on increasing the speed of the gat till a time came when even the very knowledgeable musicians sitting in front could hardly keep pace or track of the taal with their fingers. However, both Baba and Biroo were proceeding like machines. This went on for nearly half an hour and there was no sign of either of them stopping.

At this stage, Bhatkhande and other senior musicians sitting in the front gave them a rousing hand, rushed on to the stage and stopped both the musicians, calling it a draw, knowing that continuation of the concert at that speed was not good for either. There was, of course, no question of one "beating" the other, for both were masters of their own art. This was such a relief both to Baba and Biroo that the former gratefully put the violin down in complete exhaustion while the latter, thin and weak that he was, fainted on the stage. After he revived, both Baba and Biroo embraced each other heartily. It was indeed a memorable concert.

Khadim Husain Khan heard Baba playing several times thereafter and was greatly impressed by his mastery over both sur and laya and his uncanny command over almost every musical instrument.

Among other instrumentalists, Khadim Husain Khan specially recalls thoroughly enjoying recitals by Mushraf Khan beenkar Alwarwale, Qutub Ali Khan beenkar Jaipurwale (son of the legendary Rajab Ali Khan beenkar) and the sitar wizards Inayat Khan and Imdad Khan (father and grandfather of the sitar maestro Vilayat Khan).

The musicians mentioned above are only some of the many whom he has heard and appreciated. There are several others whom he has enjoyed listening to in the last seventy odd years and it will be a futile task even to make an attempt to name all of them. Among the old-timers not mentioned above, the names of Ramakrishnabuva Vaze, Kale Khan Mathurawale (alias Saras Piya) and Altaf Husain Khurjawale deserve special mention, according of Khadim Husain Khan. He also likes to listen to some of the current noted musicians but his comments or remarks about them are not included here since the music lovers of today can themselves hear them and judge their merits. His only comment is that the standard of today is nowhere near that of the old masters except in the case of a microscopic few. Nevertheless, it is Khadim Husain Khan's usual habit to listen to various musicians of widely different standards and appreciate their good points - a habit constantly inculcated in him by his guru, Kallan Khan and other elders in the family. This is a habit that musicians of today, both aspiring and established, could well try to develop to their great advantage and benefit.

It is not quite "correct" to ask an ustad of the calibre of Khadim Husain Khan as to who, among the numerous musicians that he has heard over the last seven decades, were the most impressive in his opinion. He usually avoids such questions diplomatically by saying that every musician has his or her good points and each of the older musicians excelled in certain aspects of singing. However, after persistent and tactful questioning, Khadim Husain Khan has given the author, reluctantly though, some idea as to who impressed him the most.

The most sureel musician he has heard is, without any doubt, his guru Kallan Khan. It must be remembered that Kallan Khan was more than 70 years old when Khadim Husain Khan first heard him at Jaipur as a toddler and when his talim started the ustad was 78 ! Even at that age if Kallan Khan was the most sureel musician that Khadim Husain Khan has heard, one can only guess how sureel he would have been in his heydays and how much more Ghaggeji would have been !

Khadim Husain Khan always admits that there was not much tayyari in Kallan Khan's singing but then tayyari was developed only by those musicians who just could not impress with sur. Also, tayyari had a very low priority in talim because it was meant to impress only the galleries and not the connoisseurs and knowledgeable listeners. As a matter of fact, in the earlier days, when a musician finished alap and raga vistar and went on to taans, several people used to get up and go away for tea or just leave saying that they were not interested in listening to riyaz. Some would come back but only when the next raga started !

The musician with the most touching voice and style that Khadim Husain Khan has heard, is the old lady singer Nanni Jan of Junagadh, from whom he learnt a couple of Kathiawari bhajans.

The most outstanding all round musician that he has heard is undoubtedly his own maternal uncle-cum- adopted father Abdullah Khan. Others who came close to him were Kudratulla Khan Rangile and Faiyaz Khan.

According to Khadim Husain Khan, the musician who had most outstanding phirat is Shabbu Khan of the Delhi and Rangila gharanas.

The most outstanding and impressive dhrupadiya that he has heard is Karamat Khan Jaipurwale, the master of alapchari as well as layakari.

Khadim Husain Khan puts his eldest maternal uncle Mohammed Khan, as the musician who had the vastest knowledge and repertoire of ragas. As said elsewhere in this narration, it was the usual saying that a raga Mohammed Khan did not know was not worth knowing ! Others in this category were his paternal grandfather Inayat Khan Atrauliwale and grand-uncle Mehboob Khan Daras.

Finally, the handsomest (!) musician (and an excellent singer too) he has seen is Aashiq Ali Khan, the son of Mohammed Ali Khan Fatehpuriye alias Miya Manrangji. He has narrated some incidents of how Aashiq Ali Khan got into trouble on account of his exceptionally good looks and handsome features ! (They cannot be put on record). The author regrets that he was born half a century too late, which denied him the opportunity of listening to any of the musicians named above. However, even Khadim Husain Khan feels that he himself was born 50 years too late, which denied him the opportunity of listening to the all-time greats in classical music like Ghagge Khudabaksh, Natthan Khan, Tanras Khan, Natthan Peerbaksh Gwaliorwale, Rajab Ali Khan beenkar and others. It is his eternal regret that he never got an opportunity to listen to other musicians like Bablibai, Bhaskerbuva Bakhale, Zohrabai Agrewali and a few others despite the fact that they lived for some years after he was born. He was told by his elders how and what they sang, just as Khadim Husain Khan recounts vividly to his admirers and disciples today about the great musicians he has heard. The descriptions and reminiscences given are only the more important ones and are but a fraction of the great experiences he has gone through with old-time musicians. All those experiences have indeed enriched Khadim Husain Khan’s gayaki significantly and made his admirers (like the author) wiser about the old- time ustads, their accomplishments, their gayakis and their specialities.

The musical spectrum is indeed vast, varied and variegated which makes Khadim Husain Khan often say : “He who thinks that his own gharana is the best is a "कू ड " and he who thinks that his own music and singing style are the best is a "महा कू ड ". In Sanskrit there is an apt word for such people, namely, "कू प मणूक" (a frog-in-the-well). To a frog that lives in a well and has never been outside, the well is a world or universe and it cannot even imagine that anything else exists.

To illustrate the point that the best musician is still only a drop in the musical ocean, Khadim Husain Khan narrates an incident relating to his own family. Ghulam Abbas Khan was very fond of his grandson- cum-last-disciple, Faiyaz Khan. Every time Faiyaz Khan went to give a performance somewhere (even as late as 1930 when Faiyaz Khan was considered THE ace performer of the country), Ghulam Abbas Khan would sit at home with a rosary and keep on praying fervently that the recital should be a success. After the recital the party would reach home and the old man would anxiously call Khadim Husain Khan and say : “Khadim, how did Faiyaz sing ?” Khadim Husain Khan would reply (and quite rightly) : “Abbaji, what can I tell you about his great recital ! Subhanallah ! The entire audience was in a trance and quite often in tears". The old man would then mutter to himself : “I must say that the boy has now started getting a wee bit of the right music”(!!). Khadim Husain Khan and others would wonder if that great recital of Faiyaz Khan was “a wee bit of good music”, what an “excellent recital” in Ghulam Abbas Khan’s opinion would be like. Having been taught by cousin Sher Khan and father Ghagge Khudabaksh, Ghulam Abbas Khan’s comparison was based on a wholly different standard. How standards differ !

We, of today, born during or after the second World War, can only vaguely visualise what the old-world musicians were like from the descriptions of old-time ustads (like Khadim Husain Khan) who themselves had only heard of the earlier all-time greats from their elders. However, the descriptions of the various ustads given here might give a glimpse into the glory of our musical heritage in the earlier part of this century, since they are all based on Khadim Husain Khan’s actual experiences. As such, the details given above are no exaggerations and certainly not statements jaundiced by gharana jealousies nor petty and narrow-minded feelings. This is because most of the ustads described above did not belong to Khadim Husain Khan’s gharana or khandan and yet he has genuinely and sincerely appreciated them. 7. KHAN SAHEB AS MUSICIAN AND COMPOSER

Before going into the question of Khadim Husain Khan’s greatness as a musician and composer (of cheezas, not ragas) and where he fits into the general musical scene today, it will not be out of place to make a review of the “state of art” in classical music today and in which direction it is heading. The author must, however, hasten to state here that he is not a musician at all, and has never had any talim from any teacher. He is just a listener, but having been in contact with Khadim Husain Khan for about a decade he feels bold enough to flatter himself a little by stating that he is an “initiated” listener. However, a listener is all that he is and his comments are, therefore, entirely those of a listener.

The author has some justification for calling himself an initiated listener because he has had the privilege of being present during a few of Khadim Husain Khan’s masterly talim sessions, when he was explaining to some of his students the subtle and precise differences between very close ragas. The norms by which he differentiates or compares such ragas are crystal clear in his mind, but his greatness lies in the fact that he can come down to the level of even a very average listener in such sessions. That is how the author has benefited immensely in his understanding and comprehension of a variety of ragas. He can never forget the particularly absorbing session he once had, along with several of the ustad’s students, in which Khansaheb was explaining the exact differences (and many similarities) between the family of ragas comprising Desi, Barwa, Sindhura, Patdeep, Patdeepki and Patdeepak. The author is rather unfamiliar with sargams and theory of music and cannot exactly say whether a particular note is ati-komal gandhar or semi-teevra madhyam ! Yet, the clear and unambiguous way Khadim Husain Khan explains ragas by their general combination of notes or the chalan, and the emphasis and juxtaposition of notes with reference to each other, is truly remarkable and very clearly intelligible.

This is what makes him the great ustad he rightly is. He has enabled the author, despite the latter’s limited knowledge of classical music, to recognise and differentiate close ragas and know when a singer is deviating from the basic norms of a raga. This is probably the limit of the author’s knowledge of music and the comments that follow on the musical scene today are made within this limited knowledge.

There are several disturbing trends in classical music these days which the author would like to point out. The author must admit the fact that he is basically a traditionalist and rather averse to musical gimmicks, especially those meant to attract cheap publicity and deviate from the established norms of music and ragas.

The author has heard of ustads deliberately (or unconsciously) distorting ragas and cheezas while teaching different students. The ostensible reason is the ustad’s fear that his own importance will considerably diminish if he were to give away all his vidya correctly to all his students ! This has resulted in the same raga being called by different names and different ragas called by the same name.

The author has come across numerous such instances but to illustrate the point he wishes to take something that is “on record” (literally and figuratively !). Take the case of the 78 r.p.m. records of Kesarbai Kerkar. He is told that she was acknowledged as one of the greatest women singers in the ‘40s and ‘50s – some even say that she was one in a century in respect of taans and the way of reaching the sam. He has listened to two records where the stated ragas and Kukkubh Bilawal and Khambawati. As far as the author’s knowledge goes the former sounds more like Sawani or its prakar. How Sawani, a distinct night melody, can be confused with or referred to as a Bilawal, a mid-morning melody, is not understood. The “real” Kukkubh Bilawal, as the author knows it, is one of his favourite ragas. In Khambawati, Kesarbai renders the well-known cheeza "आलीरी मै जागी" composed by Mehboob Khan “Daras” and personally taught by him to the various Agra and Atrauli ustads, particularly Khadim Husain Khan. However, in Kesarbai’s disc, the same cheeza sounds more like Rageshri, not Khambawati. Variations like these indeed baffle one and, to add to the confusion, each one maintains that his own version is correct and all the others are wrong, even if that version is quite different from what the composer himself meant it to be !

Ignorance of a musician is not wholly the musician’s fault, as it will depend upon what the ustad or guru has taught him or her. It is here that the choice of a good ustad is vital. The problems arising out of ignorance can best be described by the author’s own experience with the recital of a fairly well-known musician. The raga announced was Yaman but the exposition turned out to be a 75-25 mixture of Yaman and Khem. On enquiring the author got the answer that the musician had never heard of Khem ! In another instance, the raga Desi was being sung, but the musician brought in generous doses of Barwa and Patdeepki in the exposition. Reason ? The musician had heard the name Barwa but did not know how it was sung and Patdeepki was a name that the musician had not even heard before !

One cannot altogether blame the musicians for this state of affairs, but there are two sure correctives possible and very necessary. First, one should choose a teacher who is very knowledgeable and has a wide repertoire and, secondly, one should constantly listen to musicians from various gharanas. The latter will enable the musician to get to know a good many things without even a teacher’s aid. That’s why the Agra ustads constantly advise their disciples to become good listeners also.

Notwithstanding all this, if the teacher gives the correct chalan of a raga to the student and makes sure that alien notes or combination of notes are scrupulously avoided, such mix-ups can be avoided to a large extent. But, alas, it’s a different story today.

The author is intrigued by ragas such as Suha-Sughrai. Suha and Sughrai are two separate ragas each with a distinct flavour and yet they are quite close to each other. The art and beauty lies in singing them separately without bringing the aspects of one into the other. The only explanation that the author can think of for such compounds of close ragas is that the musician is unable to keep Suha and Sughrai separate and distinct. The result is Suha-Sughrai. By a simple extention of the same principle, one can expect compounds like Bhupali-Deshkar, Puriya-Marwa or Marwa-Sohini, Yaman-Khem, Darbari-Adana, Desi-Barwa, etc. in the not too distant future ! The author has heard that Paraj-Basant is an accepted raga among some instrumentalists – for the same reasons as Suha-Sughrai ?

The latest craze among many musicians is to compose new ragas by trying combinations of notes hitherto unknown (at least to the composer !) or not commonly prevalent. The author wonders why the same musicians do not first try to master the 300-odd “accepted” ragas in the system of Hindustani classical music before trying out new combinations. In a majority of cases the so-called new raga is already there; but not being known to the “composer” or not commonly sung, the musician takes full credit for “composing” it ! The particular “danger” here is the South Indian system. It is understood that there are something like 3,000 ragas in the Carnatic system as compared to the 300-odd “accepted” ragas in the Hindustani system. So if a musician composes a “new" raga in the Hindustani system, the chances are that such a raga already exists in the Carnatic system, if not in the Hindustani system itself.

One tends to wonder why there is this craze for new ragas when the “composer” cannot often master even the siddha-ragas in the first place, leave alone all the accepted ragas. A gimmick perhaps, since anyway gimmicks are the order of the day !

It is well known that pop music and catchy film songs are by far the most popular forms of music, which the public at large goes crazy about. Other styles like ghazals and geets, qawwalis, thumris, khayals and dhrupad-dhamars are successively less popular – in that order.

Classical music, as we know it today, can be said to comprise roughly 5 percent dhrupad-dhamar, 50 percent khayal, 30 percent thumri and 15 percent tappa, tarana, bhajan and lighter forms, The ratio was quite different, say, 150 years ago when dhrupad-dhamar and khayal probably shared 45-45 and the rest just 10 percent. Perhaps, as time goes by, the thumri and other lighter forms will encroach upon the pre-eminent place enjoyed by the khayal in classical music today.

The “disturbing” trend, however, as the author sees it, is the deliberate vitiation of the beautiful khayal by trying to mix it with thumri resulting in a style that can only be termed today as thumkhayal. It is not difficult to visualise the emergence of things like thumpa (thumri and tappa) and thumrana (thumri and tarana) in the near future, if such trends have not already set in.

The author is not exactly a bigoted purist but he certainly feels that the different styles of classical music have to be preserved and kept distinct by present-day musicians so that posterity knows the various delightful singing styles that the old-timers handed down to us. It goes without saying that the diverse singing styles add variety and colour to a recital, and relieve monotony.

Credit must be given to the musicians of the Dagar family, the descendants of “Pandit” Behram Khan Saharanpurwale, for meticulously adhering to their forefathers’ original dhrupad-dhamar gayaki of the Dagur bani because they give us, together with the dhrupad-dhamars that the Agra musicians have inculcated from their ustads of yesteryear, a glimpse into the music systems that were in vogue in the hoary past. One can only lament the mixing-up of singing styles being indulged in by various musicians today, some of whom are quite popular with the masses.

Another deplorable modern tendency is to vitiate raga forms deliberately in the name of neo-classicism. This again is a gimmick for pleasing the lowest strata of listeners who could not care a fig whether classical music is going to the dogs or not, and only want some gimmicks from musicians for “instant pleasure”. And there are enough musicians today who are ever willing, nay anxious, to cater to the whims of such listeners because publicity and instant mass appeal are indeed the order of the day and take total precedence over purity and aesthetics of classical music. Thus, alien notes are deliberately introduced in established or siddha-ragas to draw applause from the galleries. The result is not neo-classicism but pseudo-classicism and nothing short of sacrilege done to our glorious musical heritage.

The author has heard musicians singing khayals in such established and straightforward ragas like Darbari and Bhimpalasi where clearly alien notes or combination of alien notes are deliberately brought in, resulting in such ragas being necessarily identified as Mishra-Darbari and Mishra Bhimpalasi. The extension of this trend is bound to lead sooner or later to further vitiation of raga forms whereby even the prefix mishra will be insufficient to describe them and one will be forced to call them prakars of Mishra- Darbari and Mishra-Bhimpalasi ! It is not difficult to imagine that the end result of all this is nothing less than classical music being reduced to a morass of cacophony.

When such disturbing trends are evident in classical music, a true lover of good, clean, wholesome and pure classical music can do nothing but tender silent prayers for its future. History and mythology say that when culture and morality start getting degraded, such trends snowball and go to the brink of collapse. But somewhere, someone or some people quietly but significantly keep sanity and preserve the high values, and good ultimately prevails over the evil trends. Likewise, despite such disturbing trends in classical music, the author sincerely believes that pure and aesthetic forms will ultimately prevail over the various vitiated and corrupted forms that come into vogue from time to time. It is here that great ustads like Khadim Husain Khan have a significant, important and decisive role to play.

Let us take each of the trends mentioned above and examine how Khadim Husain Khan is directly and indirectly helping in stalling the unhealthy metamorphosis that is taking place in classical music today.

Khadim Husain Khan’s vidya comes from some of the greatest masters of the 19th and 20th centuries and he has, therefore, acquired a huge repertoire of authentic ragas. He also has a proven record of teaching exactly the correct form to hundreds of students over the last half a century. A student who was taught a raga by Khadim Husain Khan in 1928 will sing it exactly the way a student who was taught by him in 1978 would render it. Naturally so, for Khadim Husain Khan considers sacred the vidya that he acquired from his beloved ustad Kallan Khan and others. He also considers it his bounden duty to impart it as faithfully and sincerely to his numerous students as he acquired it from his ustads.

Khan Saheb singing a dhammar in a unique concert in 1952, with All Rakha on tabla and Ramdas on pakhawaj playing together.

A classic instance of this took place in the author’s own house recently and is worth mentioning. One evening the author and his wife were chatting with Sitaram Phatarphekar, an old student of Vilayat Husain Khan, when a common friend walked in. In the course of conversation the friend asked in general what the correct form of the raga Khambawati was. On an impulse, both Sitarambuva and the author’s wife started singing together the celebrated bandish "आलीरी मै जागी" in Khambawati. They were both so precise and exact in the rendering from beginning to end that both the friend and the author were amazed. It was as if the two had practised the cheeza together over and over again and perfected it ! Yet, Sitarambuva had learnt it from Vilayat Husain Khan in the ‘40s and the author’s wife from Khadim Husain Khan in the ‘70s and that was the very first time that the two were ever singing anything together ! Also, the composer of the bandish, Mehboob Khan “Daras”, had himself taught it to Vilayat Husain Khan and Khadim Husain Khan at two totally different times !

This incident was only a further and unshakeable proof that what the Agra ustads, especially the “great trio” of Vilayat Husain Khan, Khadim Husain Khan and Anwar Husain Khan, sang and taught are by far the most authentic, correct and precise. Thus Khadim Husain Khan can indeed play a very vital role in enlightening the musicians and music lovers on the correct forms (and names) of the various ragas that are in vogue.

In the context of Khadim Husain Khan’s phenomenal vidya and his sincerity to the art, it goes without saying that he is the ideal ustad to dispel the musical ignorance of musicians and music lovers. It is no exaggeration to say that Khadim Husain Khan possesses the largest repertoire among all living ustads and he is the one teacher who can impart to his students the maximum raga forms.

Also, Khadim Husain Khan is so clear and precise about the correct form of each raga that he is by far the most competent ustad to ensure that close ragas do not get mixed up and result in Suha-Sughrais and Puriya-Marwas. There are several ragas to which he has given much thought and reasoned out their forms. Therefore, unless a compound raga can create a separate and distinct colour, different from its components, he does not normally accept such mixed-up compounds. The author must state here that Khadim Husain Khan has not had any inclination to learn or absorb ragas of South Indian origin. Thus, even though ragas like Kalavati, Abhogi, Madhuvanti, Saraswati, Hamsadhwani, etc. are today accepted as integral parts of the system of Hindustani classical music (thanks mainly to the mammoth efforts of Abdul Karim Khan), Khadim Husain Khan does not sing or teach those ragas to his disciples. The lone exception here is Shivaranjani which somehow caught his fancy and he has composed a cheeza in this raga. (Shivaranjani also exists in the Hindustani system under the name Bhoop- Kinkini)

In respect of self-composed ragas too Khadim Husain Khan has strong ideas. He feels that one should first master the siddha ragas and then go on to the numerous other established and accepted ragas already handed down by the great masters of yesteryear. Only thereafter, if such a time comes at all, should one try a hand at composing new ragas. Otherwise there is the obvious danger that a so-called new raga might not be a new one at all and may already exist, unknown to the “composer”.

Khan Saheb in a mehfil with Ahmedjan Thirakwa on tabla and Yaseen Khan on sarangi. Vocal support by Latafat Husain Khan and Yunus Husain Khan.

Almost all the ragas that Khadim Husain Khan sings and teaches, with only three exceptions, are those that he acquired from his numerous illustrious ustads. The three exceptions are Sundershree, Pancham- Hindoli and Lalit-Bhairav, which he has himself composed through inspiration. Also, they are distinctly different from the hundreds of ragas known to him; yet he does not claim that they are altogether new; for he does not rule out the possibility that they may exist in the South Indian System. The chalans of these ragas are so beautiful that he was inspired to compose them.

Khadim Husain Khan is a master of various styles of classical and semi-classical music and quite proficient in almost all of them. This is because he had the opportunity and privilege of learning from some of the great masters of several diverse styles both from within and outside his khandan. The outstanding feature of Khadim Husain Khan is that, despite his intimate knowledge and mastery over different singing styles, he keeps them all separate and distinct when he gives a rendering and scrupulously avoids unaesthetic amalgams. It is quite an education to hear him explain, for instance, the typical angs of thumri that should be avoided in khayal and vice versa. This keeps him uniquely apart from the rest as a musician and teacher and gives his multifarious sureel gayaki a class all its own.

Khadim Husain Khan’s most vital role is probably in respect of avoiding the unhealthy and dangerous tendencies of evolving mishra ragas and prakars of mishra ragas. He is nothing short of a fanatic in the matter of purity of ragas. As described elsewhere, he is a sweet-tempered person and hardly ever gets upset or angry. However, an almost sure way of getting him upset is for a student of his to mix up ragas !

Khadim Husain Khan constantly encourages all his students, just as his ustads encouraged him, to absorb the finer and aesthetic aspects of every gharana and singing style as long as the cardinal principles of the Agra gayaki are scrupulously maintained. They are : purity of ragas, clarity and precision of the bandish, perfectness in laya and keeping each singing style separate and distinct. Khadim Husain Khan rightly points out that, once these four principles are adhered to, a musician is unlikely to fall behind in his path towards musical perfection. The more he listens and absorbs the aesthetic aspects of other singing styles and gharanas, but always keeping the cardinal principles in mind, the closer he will get to the ultimate goal of becoming a perfect musician. Indeed, Khadim Husain Khan is one of the very few living ustads, if not the only one, to have come nearest to that ultimate goal.

He is the most ideal ustad today to stall the unhealthy trends in classical music, to propagate the high ideals of purity and aesthetics of the beautiful singing styles and to preserve our great musical heritage in all its pristine purity for posterity.

Another important facet of Khadim Husain Khan is his uncanny knack of composing beautiful cheezas. It is a well known fact that a majority of Agra gharana cheezas in the drut laya are based on a delightful interplay of bol and laya, which make them very attractive, lilting and pleasing. Khadim Husain Khan’s repertoire of such cheezas is indeed enormous. However, being the direct descendant or blood relation of great composers like Saras Rang, Ghulam Abbas Khan, Mehboob Khan “Daras”, Tasadduq Husain Khan, Faiyaz Khan, Vilayat Husain Khan and Nanne Khan, the urge to compose beautiful cheezas is always in him and the musical world of today has greatly benefited from his delightful compositions, which are generally on the familiar lines of a majority of Agra compositions.

The usual way of singing a khayal in a raga is by opening with a vilambit cheeza in a slow, methodical manner where the raga and the bol are given careful and detailed treatment. The laya is then gradually increased and some minutes are spent on sargams, taans and other faster aspects of the vilambit khayal. For completeness of the khayal, however, the drut khayal is considered a must, for it is here that the musician can show his mastery over such delightful aspects as laya-bol, bol-baant, layakari, etc. The speed is then again increased till it reaches a vivid and colourful crescendo to the intense emotional and intellectual satisfaction of the listeners.

There are some styles which concentrate only on the madhya-laya khayal. Almost all the ragas are sung only in Madhya-laya at the same speed which usually becomes quite monotonous and leaves listeners dissatisfied. There are several ragas in the Agra gayaki also, where only vilambit or Madhya-laya khayals have been handed down by the old masters. It is in such cases that Khadim Husain Khan has made beautiful drut compositions and has enabled these ragas to be given thorough and complete treatment by his students. His contribution, therefore, is very precious and his drut compositions have almost a magical charm about them. He has composed drut cheezas starting from almost every matra of the taal and the way they reach the sam is indeed delightful.

The circumstances which inspired him to compose some of the many cheezas are quite interesting. Here are a few instances. It was in the early/mid ‘30s that Khadim Husain Khan had his first urge to try a hand at composing cheezas. It is a well known fact that he is not only an extremely sureel musician but also has an uncanny command over laya. Laya was part of him and he would constantly try all kinds of beautiful laya-patterns in his mind. It is in one such mood that he was suddenly inspired to compose his very first cheeza, "मोरा मनहर लीनो" in a raga which he calls Mishra-Mand. At that time he was essentially concentrating on the poetry and laya, and did not give much thought to the raga of that composition. After all, he had mastered hundreds of ragas and, at that stage of his “composing career”, the raga did not matter. So this cheeza stresses more on the laya than on the raga.

Soon after he composed the cheeza he met Ratnakant Ramnathkar, a student of Vilayat Husain Khan, and immediately proceeded teach him the composition. Ratnakantji was delighted with the cheeza, and earnestly requested him to start composing many more for the benefit of his students. Thus it was that Khadim Husain Khan began his “career” as a composer of cheezas.

His first thought was the pseudonym. Since all his distinguished predecessors used the suffix ‘Piya’ to their pseudonyms, he too decided to have “Piya” added to his own. Soon he hit upon the word ‘Sajan’ and decided to call himself SAJAN PIYA. Little did he realise then that a day would come when “Sajan Piya” compositions would be as popular and delightful as those of Daras Piya, Vinod Piya, Prem Piya and Pran Piya. In about a decade from now Sajan Piya compositions would certainly be as popularly and widely sung as those of any other popular composer of yesteryear.

Faiyaz Khan was very fond of singing the beautiful raga Maluha Kedar. The drut composition "मोरी आली मोरा मन" in that raga was also a great favourite of Faiyaz Khan. However, it did not have an antara, which restricted Faiyaz Khan from singing it fully. The great composer that Faiyaz Khan was, he made many attempts to compose an antara for it but was unsuccessful and finally gave up. Apparently, his particular problem arose from the fact that the last word of the asthayi was "गिलयन मे" and he found it difficult to choose an appropriate matching word in the antara.

Sometime in the mid ‘40s, Faiyaz Khan had come to Bombay to give some recitals. In the evening, he was preparing to sit for dinner just prior to leaving for the recital when he called Khadim Husain Khan and said, “Khadim, I want to sing Maluha Kedar tonight but I just cannot make an antara for the drut composition. Will you try and compose one while I have my dinner so that I can sing it tonight ?”

Khadim Husain Khan was perplexed. How was he to compose the antara in half an hour, when Faiyaz Khan himself was unable to do so for many years ? At the same time, when his beloved Mamu made a request, he just could not refuse or ignore it. First of all he did what he always does when he is in a quandary, that is, he closed his eyes and thought of his beloved guru, Kallan Khan, and invoked his blessings. Within a few minutes the antara came to him in a flash of inspiration, as though from the fourth dimension. He immediately ran to his Mamu and sang it for him. Faiyaz Khan was delighted and said: “Wah, Khadim ! You have really become a pukka ustad now. I knew I could count on you for this “.

The same night Khadim Husain Khan accompanied Faiyaz Khan, as usual, on one of the tanpuras and the programme in general and the Maluha Kedar in particular were highly appreciated by all. That was the very first time the world heard the now-popular antara "जमुना तट पर" of the celebrated "मोरी आली मोरा मन". Faiyaz Khan made this cheeza very popular all over the country but not many know that the antara was composed by Khadim Husain Khan in the mid '40s in a matter of minutes.

Some time in the late ‘40s, the Maharaja of Baroda invited Vilayat Husain Khan to perform at his palace. Thinking that this was a good opportunity to meet his beloved uncle Faiyaz Khan, Khadim Husain Khan along with some others from Bombay, decided to accompany Vilayat Husain Khan. After reaching Baroda, they had lunch and were resting when Vilayat Husain Khan suddenly had a choking sensation and coughed violently for some time. This affected his vocal chords and he completely lost his voice. Every one was in a fix and they explained the problem to Faiyaz Khan. After some reflection Faiyaz Khan decided to let Khadim Husain Khan substitute for Vilayat Husain Khan. However, a request was made to Khadim Husain Khan that he should commence his recital with the raga Gorakh Kalyan that evening because it was a favourite raga of the people of Baroda and the Maharaja in particular.

Khadim Husain Khan gladly agreed to start the recital with Gorakh Kalyan but felt that the drut composition "देखो देखो सखी" was too common and a new cheeza might not be out of place. As usual, with his mind on Kallan Khan, he set about composing a new drut khayal and, soon enough, came up with the beautiful cheeza "िपया नही आए". The recital was highly appreciated by the Maharaja and the people, particularly Gorakh Kalyan and the new drut composition.

Some time in the early ‘60s, all the Agra ustads of Bombay were invited to perform at the punyatithi of Faiyaz Khan. Right from the previous night Khadim Husain Khan’s thoughts were constantly on Faiyaz Khan and his great experiences with him. Being in a very sad mood, full of Faiyaz Khan’s memories, the plaintive raga Jaunpuri continued to haunt him all night and even early next morning when he woke up. Khadim Husain Khan therefore made up his mind to sing Jaunpuri that morning.

Khan Saheb giving a memorable concert in November, 1970 on the occasion of his felicitation. Accompanied by Taranath Rao on tabla and Sultan Khan on sarangi, vocal support from Yakub Husain and Baban Haldankar.

Once again he felt that the usual drut composition "झननन िबछू वा बाजे" was too commonly sung to the extent of becoming stale. So he was inspired to compose the lovely drut cheeza "कैसे करँ उन संग" in Jaunpuri which he sang at the punyatithi programme, to the delight of all the listeners. He particularly recalls that during the alap of Jaunpuri not only he himself but almost all those sitting on the front rows had tears in their eyes, for it was strongly reminiscent of Faiyaz Khan’s inimitable style of singing.

One particular incident is worth mentioning here. One evening after his talim at our home he asked us to go with him to Laxmi Baug in Girgaum, where the famous duo Ginde and Bhat, the distinguished disciples of S N Ratanjankar, were performing and Khansaheb had a special invitation for it. Unfortunately we had another engagement that evening but we dropped Khansaheb there. Soon after we returned from our engagement there was a knock on our door and there was Khansaheb ! He said the duo sang raga Jhinjoti and the drut khayal that they rendered was Ratanjankar's celebrated composition "मेरो मन सखी हर लीनो" which starts from the second matra of teen taal. This impressed Khansaheb immensely, and it was working on his mind for a long time on his way back home. In a sudden flash he was inspired to compose one on similar lines, which was his delightful composition in the same raga "साँवरे सलोनेसे लागे मोरे नैन" starting from the fifth matra of teen taal. He wrote it down on the back of a bus ticket in Urdu and instead of going home, he came straight to our house and said: "Lalitha, I have just composed a cheeza based on Ratanjankar's Jhinjoti drut and thought I should come over and teach you that immediately. So even if I forget it later, it will be safe with you !"

Khadim Husain Khan was often inspired to compose cheezas in popular as well as less known ragas and each one of them is a gem. He also composed three beautiful ragas, as mentioned earlier, with cheezas in them.

Khadim Husain Khan himself admits that quite a few of the cheezas that he has recently composed were at the persistent request of his prominent disciple, Lalith J. Rao. It all started innocuously enough in 1970 when Lalith first commenced her music lessons with Khadim Husain Khan. The last public performance she had given was at the Swami Haridas Sangeet Sammelan in 1957 as a thirteen-year old. Since then, she had given up music for more than a decade. Khadim Husain Khan took up training her in right earnest and within a few months made her bold enough to give her first public recital after her “second initiation” into music. This was at the Kal-ke-Kalakar Sangeet Sammelan in November 1970 where she had to start all over again from the lowest rung of the musical ladder. For some reason she chose Bihag. The drut cheeza taught to her by Khadim Husain Khan was the beautiful "काना भर भर मारे िपचकारी". However, there was a snag - there was no antara for that cheeza. Therefore, Lalith asked her ustad to compose one and teach her since the asthayi fascinated her. This was in June-July 1970. Time passed and the month of October came. Lalith reminded her ustad about the antara since she had to sing it at her first public re-appearance the next month. Every time Khadim Husain Khan said : “Yes, I will compose one soon”. Again some days passed and only a week was left for the recital and Lalith told Khansaheb that unless she was taught an antara, all her riyaz of Bihag would go waste and she would have to start preparing another raga hastily at that late stage. Khadim Husain Khan knew that he now had to do it quickly and saying nothing he left Lalith’s home promising to come back the next day. On his way home by bus, he was constantly thinking of this matter when, in a flash, the antara came to him. He hurriedly scribbled it in on the back of his bus-ticket and rushed back to Lalith’s house immediately. She was surprised to see the ustad returning so soon and, when told the reason, she was delighted and learnt the long-awaited antara immediately. The recital was a grand success and Khadim Husain Khan, who was sitting in the audience anxiously, took legitimate pride in the success of the recital.

Thus started the “composing spree” of Khadim Husain Khan at Lalith’s request. He has taught several uncommon ragas to Lalith in the course of his talim. Every time a khayal had no drut composition, however, she would tell him that she was not going to sing that raga at a concert unless he composed a drut for her. That is when he really set about the task of composing drut cheezas in various ragas like Khem Kalyan, Ramgouri, Lalita Gouri, Deepak Kedar, Bihagada, Champak Bilawal, Dhanashri, Hindoli, Sundershri, Miya-ki-Sarang, Patdeepki, Poorba, Sawant Sarang, etc. one by one.

It is very difficult to say which are the most beautiful cheezas among all those he has composed. Each has a special charm, a particular characteristic and a different beauty of its own which makes it stand out. Different aspects of a cheeza catch the fancy of different people. The cheezas that usually impress the author most, especially in drut laya, are those that have a special interplay of bol and laya. Of course, a majority of the Agra gharana drut cheezas have this quality to some extent. From this point of view alone, the compositions of Khadim Husain Khan that have particularly impressed the author are "बीती जात सगरी उमिरया" in Khambawati, "साँवरे सलोनेसे लागे मोरे नैन" in Jhinjoti, "सजन तुम जरा बोलो" in Sohini, "तीखे नैना तोरे" in the original Chandrakauns, etc. This is not to say that the other cheezas composed by Khadim Husain Khan are any less impressive but there are always some that catch one’s fancy.

With pestering disciples like Lalith Rao around, there is no doubt that there will be many more of his compositions as time passes.

Disciples and admirers of Khadim Husain Khan have got together under the aegis of SAJAN MILAP, mainly to encourage talented but less known musicians of every gharana. They will also endeavour to compile all his cheezas on magnetic tape rendered by Khadim Husain Khan himself so that they will be available to posterity “straight from the horse’s mouth”.

The author can never get tired of listening to khayals in Khambawati and Chandrakauns, where the vilambit cheezas "आलीरी मै जागी" and "बेगी आवन कर पार" (respectively) are followed by the above drut compositions of Khadim Husain Khan, which make them the most ideal combinations. Naturally so, for the vilambits were composed by grand-uncle Daras Piya, and the druts by grand-nephew, Sajan Piya. This is a typical example of the delightful enrichment of classical music by its various outstanding exponents in the course of its evolution over the years.

May this glorious and great tradition, gharana and gayaki always continue to blossom forth in their most authentic and colourful forms, retaining their pristine purity and unending variety and splendour.

! The ustad and the author. 8. KHAN SAHEB'S HUMAN SIDE

(New chapter added in 2017)

A biography of a great ustad like Khadim Husain Khan will be incomplete without mentioning what made him such a wonderful human being, a gentle, humane, lovable person with a fine sense of humour.

We had just moved to Bombay from Delhi in 1969, and Lalith's dream of learning from Ustad Khadim Husain Khan seemed plausible. Our aunt, Saguna Kalyanpur, a senior and distinguished disciple of Khan Saheb had informed him that we would like to meet him. We planned to visit him soon, and request him to accept Lalith as his disciple. One day there was a knock on the door and on opening it, there stood a small, slim man with grey hair and moustache, thick spectacles, clad in a white dhoti, kurta and a black jacket. He looked a typical UP Brahmin, and with a gentle smile on his face he announced, "मै खािदम हसैन, अंदर आ सकता हँ का?" I could have been knocked down with a feather as I expected him to look something like Ustad Faiyaz Khan, whose pictures I had seen, and had least expected that he would be standing, waiting to enter our home. Immediately I touched his feet and invited him in, and hurriedly called Lalith. Thus it was that Khansaheb walked into our home and our hearts. He sat down and said, "सगुना ने मुझे आप का पता िदया था और कहा भी था िक आप मुझे िमलने आएंगे | मै सामने िनलीमाबेन के यहाँ आया था, तो मै ने सोचा आप को िमल के जाऊँ ". These were the incredible words of an ustad, humility personified, with no airs about him. When Lalith reminded him about his having met her as a 12-year old at Saguna's house, he said that he not only remembered meeting her but also hearing her sing. With great trepidation we asked whether he would accept Lalith as his shagird. He readily consented and thus began for Lalith an unforgettable guru-shishya relationship, etched in letters of gold. It is said in our scriptures that a guru comes to a sadhaka when the sadhaka is eager and ready, and nothing could be truer in her case. It was as if the guru and shishya were made for each other !

Khansaheb was a very kind hearted soul and would help anyone in need. Every month he would give money to Lalith and ask her to send money orders to three of his old aunts living in Atrauli and Aligarh. He said they were in difficult circumstances and he felt it was his duty to support them as long as they lived. He also looked after the family of his younger brother Anwar Husain Khan, who passed away at a comparatively young age.

Khansaheb accepted whatever his disciples gave him as Dakshina. One of his disciples ran into some financial problems and told Khansaheb that he would have to stop learning for a while as he could not pay his tuition fees, but that he would resume after he settled his financial matters. Immediately Khansaheb told him that he would continue to teach him, and he could resume paying him whenever possible.

Whenever any student was ill, he would prepare home made remedies himself. I remember when Lalith had a throat problem, he would make a special 'kaada' and some poultice-like preparation to tie round her neck, and bring them all the way to our home. He was truly like a father figure not only to both of us, but to all his disciples, whom he treated like his own children.

Khansaheb lived in an apartment in the Gowalia Tank area in South Bombay, and most of his disciples were living in South or Central Bombay. As was the custom in those days, Khansaheb went to each student's home to teach them and he travelled everywhere by bus. He went all the way to Santa Cruz to teach two of his prominent disciples Mohan Chickermane and Saguna Kalyanpur, and to Sion to teach Dr Ahilya Punde and her daughter Padmaja, even though it meant long bus journeys both ways.

Every Bakrid he would invite us to his house to partake of delicious biryani and korma that he himself cooked, and prepare vegetarian biryani and korma specially for those of us who were vegetarians. However, he would often tell Lalith: "लिलता, ये घास-बूस खाने से गाना ठीक नही होगा. मुगार खाओ, गोष खाओ, और गाने मे फरक

देखो !" As was the custom in his house, all the family members would eat from a single large plate but knowing that we were not used to it, he would keep individual plates for us. When our parents came to visit us, he would surprise us by bringing food to our home; a separate tiffin carrier with vegetarian food for them. He would assure them that he had cooked the food in separate vessels and had not used any of the utensils that were used for the family cooking ! He was so caring and sensitive.

We had a lovely Golden Retriever dog called Goldie. Khansaheb did not like dogs and he would try to keep quite away from it. However, Goldie would invariably go and snuggle right under his feet. Later he started growing fond of it and actually started petting Goldie. When we met elsewhere he would always first enquire how Goldie was !

Khansaheb had a great sense of humor and excelled in narrating incidents dramatically, making all of us laugh. He had a knack of looking at the lighter side of even serious matters.

One evening after the class he bid us goodbye as he and his family were leaving the next day for Atrauli, his hometown. Next evening the bell rang and when we opened the door, imagine our surprise when Khansaheb was standing there with a mischievous grin on his face ! He said the whole family went to the station and occupied their seats on the train, as soon as it formed on the platform. A little later some people came and claimed the seats that Khansaheb and family had occupied. They looked at each others' tickets and were shocked to find the same seat numbers on both sets of tickets. The ticket collector was also perplexed by this. Later he found that Khansaheb's tickets were for the following day ! He sent his family home with the luggage in a taxi and he came straight to our house and said "सोचा िक तुमे यह िकसा पहले सुनाऊँ , हसाऊँ और

िफर घर चला जाऊँ !" Such was his affection for us.

Every time he returned from Atrauli he would bring 'salgam' (turnip) and the speciality of UP 'gajak' for all his disciples. One can well imagine the luggage he had to carry all the way to Bombay, but he thought nothing of it, as he enjoyed bringing these delicacies for all of us, his extended family.

Every year, on Guru Poornima his prominent disciples would perform, the public would be invited and the press would review the concerts. One year he insisted that all his disciples perform, even if it was just for 15 minutes. Some of them were very nervous, especially because the ace music critic, the late Mohan Nadkarni, a great admirer of Khansaheb, was sitting right in front. Khansaheb constantly flitted around them, comforting and encouraging them. In his review in the next day's Times of India, Mohanji commented that it was a real pleasure to see the great ustad caring for his disciples like a mother hen caring for her chicks. When Khansaheb came home and enquired what was written in the papers I jokingly told him: "खाँसाहब, उनोने िलखा है िक आप मुगी है !" Taken aback he quipped: "मुगी? कमबखत, कम से कम मुगार तो कहते" ! His sense of humour was instant. Of course he was quite happy when I explained the context in which it was written.

Khansaheb always encouraged his disciples to listen to the noted musicians of the day and appreciate the finer aspects of their gayaki. After attending a concert of Amir Khan, we mentioned to Khansaheb that he sang Darbari and Janasanmohini. He immediately remarked: "जनसंघ मोिहनी ? अचा, तो मै िशवसेना सोिहनी

गाऊँगा" ! Once a musician sang an uncommon raga and announced it as raga धाकडा (Dhakda). Later, Khansaheb sang another uncommon raga, and when the musician asked what the raga was, Khansaheb told him: "आप ने धाकडा गाया, तो ये कडाना है" ! Such was his instant humour.

It was mentioned in the earlier chapter that Khansaheb was a prolific composer of beautiful cheezas. Interestingly a majority of his compositions are on Krishna. One day Lalith summoned enough courage and asked him: "खाँसाहब, आप तो मुसलमान है, मगर आप के कई बंिदशे कृ ष भगवान पर है, ये कैसे?" To which he replied:

"लिलता, संगीत मे मजहब नही है, हम सब माँ सरसती के उपासक है, और सच बोलूँ तो काना के िबना गाना नही है". What an open-minded ustad ! Music was his God. He lived and breathed music.

He was also a very broad-minded ustad totally devoid of ego. Whenever Lalith performed in Bombay or Maharashtra, she used to be asked to sing Marathi natya sangeet, which she did not know. She casually told Khansaheb about it and his comment was that he would think about it. A few days later the well-known natya sangeet exponent Krishnarao Chonkar, who had worked directly with the legend Bal Gandharva, came home and said Khansaheb had asked him to teach natya sangeet to Lalith, and he would be very happy to do Khansaheb's bidding ! Truly, he was an open hearted ustad to have taken the trouble to request the master of that art form to teach Lalith !

Khansaheb always called me Rao, and strong bonds of affection had developed between us. After he finished teaching Lalith at home in the evening, I would always drop him back. Knowing how fond I was of listening to him teach Lalith, he would start teaching her only after I reached home ! If I was late, he would find some excuse to delay the lesson till I arrived. One day, Lalith got a trifle annoyed with him and said: "खाँसाहब, शािगदर तो मै हँ , मगर आप राव को जादा पार करते है, ये को?". To which he replied: "गुसा मत करो लिलता, तू तो मेरी शािगदर है, मगर राव तो मेरा बेटा है". He was truly a father figure to all of us.

Pandharinath Nageshkar, the famous tabla maestro, provided percussion accompaniment during some of Khansaheb's tuitions. It was indeed a quaint sight to see Khansaheb pillion riding on Nageshkar's two wheeler, both of them on the wrong side of sixty, going up and down Malabar Hill and Cumballa Hill ! They had quite a few escapades, and once they both fell from the motorbike but fortunately escaped with minor injuries. That incident was a talking point for Khansaheb for the next few days at all his tuitions ! However, that did not deter either of them from continuing to travel together on the bike.

In 1983, I was transferred to Delhi and this move was truly heartbreaking both for Khansaheb and Lalith (and of course for me too) but we kept in regular touch with Khansaheb. We visited Bombay to meet him at every conceivable opportunity, especially for the annual 'Sajan Milap Gharana Sammelans'. In the winter of 1984 Khansaheb and his family visited Atrauli. On their way back to Bombay, he decided to spend a day with us in Delhi. When we rang him up to find out by which train they would travel to Delhi, all he said was "अरे, तुम िफकर मत करो, अतरौली से बस पकड के अिलगड पहँचेगे, तब जो गाडी िनकल रही है उसे ले लेगे। तुमारा पता मेरे पास है, तो हम अपने आप तुमारे घर पहँच जाएँगे". We waited all day but there was no sign of him and family. That evening I had to meet someone and on the way I was surprised to see a Victoria (open horse drawn carriage) for the first time on the road in New Delhi. Little did I imagine it would be Khansaheb and his family coming all the way from the Old Delhi station to our house in New Delhi in the cold winter in an open horse carriage ! When I reached home his opening remark was: "का ठंडी है िदली मे, हम सब कुली बन गए" ! That evening he shooed our cook away and said he was going to cook the meal for us, ordered some meat and pure 'Desi Ghee' and cooked a delicious meal of biryani, korma and some mouth-watering shahi tukde.

Khan Saheb was totally committed to vidya daan to his students, and went out of his way to keep up his schedule. Soli Batlivala, Director of the Bhulabhai Memorial Institute on Warden Road, a great patron of all art forms, gave a room at the institute to Khansaheb, where he could teach some of his students, thereby avoiding commuting from one student's house to another the whole day. Padmaja Punde used to come from Sion to learn from him at the institute. One day, during a particularly heavy downpour in the monsoon, she somehow reached Bhulabhai Institute and was shocked to find Khansaheb coming, completely soaked, wading through the flooded road. She asked him why he had ventured out when the whole area was flooded, to which he replied "अरे, तुम सायन से जब सीखने आ सकती हो, तो मेरा फजर बनता है िक मै आवूँ और िसखाऊँ। थोडा भीग गया तो का फरक पडता है?" Such was his affection for his disciples.

Khansaheb was a simple man. One day he was standing at the bus stop waiting for his bus to take him to Nepean Sea Road. Suddenly a car stopped and a handsome well-dressed man got out of the car and touched his feet. Khansaheb did not recognise him. Just then Khan Saheb's nephew was passing by and told Khansaheb that it was the famous playback singer Mukesh, who had learnt for a while from Khansaheb many years back. But Khansaheb had not recognised him. Mukesh offered to drop Khansaheb wherever he wanted to go but Khansaheb politely declined the offer saying he is so used to going by bus that he would much prefer to stick to his routine !

Khansaheb would always wash his dhoti and kurta himself and whenever the younger members of his family volunteered to help, he would insist that he would wash them himself.

One of the seniormost disciples of Khansaheb was Baban Haldankar. Khansaheb had a lot of confidence in him and if we asked Khansaheb something which he could not readily remember, he would say "मै बबन से पूछ के बताऊँ गा". Once Baban asked Khansaheb "खाँसाहब, आप को लोग को िवदान कहते है?" His answer was so typical of him "इसिलए, िक वे दसरू े िवदानो को शायद नही जानते होगे". Just shows his utter humility and complete lack of ego.

Another amazing quality of Khansaheb was to treat all his disciples like his extended family, and he encouraged close bonding between all of them. That is how the disciples got together and formed the organisation "Sajan Milap" and arranged "Gharana Sammelans" which were trail blazers in Bombay. All the important gharanas of the country were projected in these sammelans under the guidance and encouragement of Khansaheb. He was totally devoid of jealousy and he tried to imbibe this quality in all his disciples.

I have chosen some of the many incidents that show the humane side of his nature, what made him a gem of a human being, in addition to being an ocean of musical knowledge. One cannot but help wishing that there were more such people, for the world would have been a much better place to live in.

By the year 1990 Khansaheb became quite ill and was totally confined to bed. He would often tell his family members that he wished to see both of us. So we flew down to Bombay often just to see him and spend some time with him. In December 1993, the great ustad passed away and the Agra-Atrauli gharana and the world of Hindustani music lost one of the greatest ustads of the 20th century. However, his galaxy of distinguished disciples are carrying forward the great legacy left behind by him. 'Sajan Piya' has become a legend and he will live forever in the hearts of Hindustani classical music lovers. EPILOGUE

(Added in 2017)

This book was written in late 1980 and released at the Third Gharana Sammelan of 'Sajan Milap' in February 1981 at the Rang Bhavan in Bombay, on which day the two performing artistes were Pt Ravi Shankar, preceded by his disciple Shamim Ahmed, who also happens to be the son-in-law of Khansaheb. Naturally a copy of the book was presented to Ravi Shankar on that occasion.

Sometime in September that year I received a call from Arunanand Dubey, who introduced himself as the Secretary to Ravi Shankar. He said Panditji wished to see me and that I should come with a copy of my book 'Sajan Piya'. Wondering why I was being 'summoned', I testily went to meet Panditji with the book. He opened my Author's Note and pointed out the sentence therein where I had written "This 'gem of purest ray serene' happily vegetates in the 'dark unfathomed caves' of sincere dedication and unalloyed devotion to music, blissfully unmindful of the honours like Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan, etc that should have come his way long, long ago but have not". He said he was fully aware of the greatness of Khansaheb, called Dubey and dictated a letter in front of me, to the then PM, Indira Gandhi, saying that he was attaching a biography of a great Ustad, who richly deserved to be conferred the Padma Bhushan.

Imagine our surprise and delight when it was announced in the newspapers on the Republic Day of 1982 that Khansaheb had been conferred the Padma Bhushan. All Khansaheb's disciples and admirers are deeply indebted to Ravi Shankar for his kindness to Khansaheb.

Since then Khansaheb also received the Tansen Samman from Gwalior and was felicitated by many other organisations for Life-time achievement in classical music. All these awards and titles hardly mattered to him and he continued to be the same simple, generous, caring person he always was.

Khansaheb was the last of the era of khandani musicians of his generation from the gharana to leave this world. His contemporaries, who were famous ustads predeceased him - his younger brother Latafat Husain Khan and his cousins Sharafat Husain Khan and Yunus Husain Khan. His wife Hasina Begum also passed away before him and he was a lonely man towards the end of his life. However, his nephew and disciple Ghulam Hasnain Khan alias Raja Miya, who stayed in the same house as Khansaheb, looked after him with care and affection till he breathed his last, as did his daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren. Raja Miya is a fine musician and is keeping the khandan's flag flying high. Two of Khansaheb's three grandsons are also musicians.

There is no doubt that Khansaheb was one of the most outstanding ustads of the 20th Century, who has left behind a truly rich legacy in the form of his innumerable disciples. Many of them are diligently carrying forward and imparting this legacy to the succeeding generations of musicians. GLOSSARY

alap – delineation of the raga alapchari – the system of alap ang – aspect antara – the second half of the song ati – very baant – division banaav – innovation or improvisation bandha – the ceremony in which a thread is tied on the wrist of a disciple bandish – the text of the song bani – ancient system of music baraat – groom’s party barhat – systematic progress been – stringed instrument also called rudra veena beenkar – one who plays the been bhajan – devotional song bol – words (of songs) chalan – the correct juxtaposition with emphasis of notes in a raga cheeza(s) – the song(s) gotra – the identifying symbol of a group of families, usually the name of a rishi guru – teacher or master dadra – six-beat taal or a song in such a taal dargah – tomb of a saint darshan – sight or appearance dhamar or dhammar – 14-beat taal of the ancient system of music or a song in such a taal dhrupad – 12-beat taal of the ancient system of music or a song in such a taal dhrupadiya – one who sings dhrupad drut – faster song or taal durbar – court of a king fakir – poor man, often with some supernatural powers ganda – the thread tied to a disciple’s wrist during the ceremony of initiation gat – composition set to a taal gayaki – style of music, usually of a gharana geet – song, of lighter variety gharana – house or school of music, usually associated with a town or village ghazal – a light classical style of songs giving more stress to words than raga layakari – rhythmic combinations lehra – the basic tune played on an instrument to assist hori – songs sung usually during the Holi festival and based on Krishna izzat – self-respect jawab – answer or reply jhala – fast instrumental passages (without tabla) jhaptaal – a taal with ten beats jod – medium-speed passages in instrumental playing (without tabla) jugalbandhi – duet kajri – light-classical style usually sung during the rainy season khalifa – usually the son of a guru, sometimes head of khandan khandan – family, usually a distinguished one khandani – of a khandan khayal – the popular style of classical music today. Actually it means “an idea” and signifies the musician’s “idea” of how a raga should be performed khayaliya – one who performs the khayal komal – the note preceding the shudh or ‘normal’ note lavani – folk style of music in Maharashtra laya – rhythm madhya – mid or middle, but usually medium-paced mana-patra – scroll of honour matra – the beat of a taal meend – a graceful glide over widely separated notes mishra – mixed or impure nawab – king of an area (muslim) nipun – expert nishad – the seventh note of the octave nom-tom – the delineation of a raga using symbolic words without meaning - supposed to be the corrupted from Hari Om Anantanarayana, the invocation to God paan – betel-leaf pandit – learned person or teacher parampara – tradition phirat – fast movements of notes prabandha – the songs sung just after the Vedic period pradhan – important or giving importance to prakar – an auxiliary or subsidiary punyatithi – death anniversary qawwali – a popular style of group-singing raga – a “mode” (Greek) - refers to an identifiable set of notes and the very basis of Indian classical music rasiya – a folk style of music, indigenous to the ‘Braj’ area of U.P. – Mathura, Brindavan and their surroundings rishabh – second note of octave rishi – sage riyaz – practice of singing sitariya – one who plays the sitar sur – ‘note’ in music sureel – tuneful sur-ka-lagaav – The correct technique of applying the sur beautifully sam – first beat of a taal sampoorna – complete, usually a raga with all the seven notes sapat – straight sarangi - a stringed instrument, usually for accompaniment to a vocalist sarangia – one who plays the sarangi Saraswat Brahmin – Brahmin whose ancestors lived on the banks of river Saraswati for several years and later migrated to various parts of India sargam – the basic octave, usually refers to notation singing sawaal – question shagird – student, disciple (Urdu) shishya – student, disciple (Sanskrit) shudh – pure siddha – established, basic sitar – popular stringed instrument taal – set of beats taan – different notes sung in fast succession tabla – a set of two (North) Indian drums talim – tuition tarana – songs with a set of words that have usually no specific meaning, very popular style tayyari – accomplishment in singing fast notes teental – a taal with 16-beats teevra – the note succeeding shuddha note thumri – a popular semi classical style of giving equal stress on words and raga tihayi – a triple set of notes sung or played before reaching sam tirvat – songs which have tabla & pakhawaj bols veda – ancient sacred text vidya – knowledge vilambit – slower passage in the khayal, usually the starting and major portion vistar – delineation or detailed treatment of a raga or any particular aspect yogi – devout person APPENDIX 1

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