Recalled with reverence

Master stroke Many Delhi-based cultural organisations came together to pay tribute to Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.

The world of Indian classical music lost a colossus with the passing away of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan on June 19 at San Anselmo, California, where he lived for many decades and established the Ali Akbar College of Music in 1967.

The India International Centre auditorium in New Delhi was packed to capacity this past week when music lovers poured in to pay a tearful tribute to the legendary ustad at a shraddhanjali sabha organised by Kala Vihar with IIC, Shri Ram Centre for Performing Arts, Bharatiya Kala Kendra, Bharatiya Sangeet Sadan, Sangeet Natak Akademi, Sharan Rani Foundation, Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, Kalashram, Shambhu Maharaj Dance Academy and Yunus Khan Memorial Society.

The sabha opened with a Saraswati vandana as Khan Saheb was a great devotee of the Goddess of Learning. Manjusree Chatterjee, Director, Kala Vihar, recollected Ustad Ali Akbar Khan as a great humanitarian and musical genius. Then followed an audiovisual presentation with excerpts from an interview he gave to Doordarshan and a concert for Kala Vihar in 1989.

Messages from stalwarts like Ravi Shankar, Girija Devi, Shiv Kumar Sharma and Nayan Ghosh were also read out. Vinay Bharatram, Sultan Singh Backliwal (husband of the late Sharan Rani), Kapila Vatsyayan, Shanno Khurana, R. Fahimuddin Dagar, Asad Ali Khan, Birju Maharaj, Debu Choudhury and Raghu Rai too shared memories of how Khan Saheb and his music had touched their heart and soul. The memorial service concluded with floral offerings before the ustad’s portrait, even as his divine music played in the background.

Strings of the season Shujaat Khan performed at the Barkha Ritu event in New Delhi.

The same evening Banyan Tree Events presented ‘Barkha Ritu’ to “celebrate rains and celebrate life” at the India Habitat Centre, featuring Sanjeev Abhyankar (vocal) and Shujaat Khan (sitar).

Heralding the rains, Sanjeev performed two popular varieties of Malhar, namely Gaud Malhar and Sur Malhar.

Being a gifted disciple of Pandit Jasraj, Sanjeev has many a time performed “Jasraji Jugalbandi”, where the male and female voices sing two different ragas simultaneously by changing the tonic — an old technique of murchhana paddhati.

It was amazing to see him trying this technique of shifting the tonic just for fun’s sake, to show (off) a glimpse of Bhoopali and Malkauns, which had nothing to do with the raga he was singing.

He also gave a lecture demonstration to depict the clouds and rains, without bothering about the next artiste, before concluding his prolonged recital with a Marathi abhang of Sant Ramdas.

Shujaat played a melodious Jhinjhoti, with alap-jod and a traditional composition in madhya (medium tempo) Teen tala with Sandip Das and Sudhir Pande giving him highly musical support on the tabla. On request, he also sang a couple of vocal compositions accompanied by his scintillating sitar.

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