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Ustad Ali Akbar Khan: A sarod maestro departs

ReenatFauzia
My uncle Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, the unparalleled sarod maestro, died recently. His father Ustad Alauddin Khan and my grandfather Ustad Ayet Ali Khan were brothers.
The news came as a shock, though he had crossed the ripe old age of 87. On June 19, Doordarshan formally conveyed the news of his sad demise.
What a glorious musical career he had enjoyed! It was a saga of arduous rewaz, going up to as much as 18 hours a day.
Born in the village of Shibpur in Brahmanbaria, Bangladesh, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan grew up in Maihar, Madhya Pradesh, where his father was the court musician to the Maharaja. An early entrant to the world of music, he began vocal training at the tender age of three. He then went on to practice diverse musical instruments under the tutelage of his father, who was adept at 200 instruments. However when the young boy feaohed the age of nine, his father decided that he should specialise in the sarod. In 1933, at the age of 11, he began to play a sarod especially designed for him by his uncle Ustad Ayet Ali Khan.
He made his first solo public appearance at the age of 13 in Allahabad. Beginning with performances at various music conferences in the '40s, he joined All India Radio, Lucknow, as a music director. Then he was sent to Jodhpur as a substitute for his father who had been invited to become the court musician for the Maharaja of Jodhpur. He remained there for six years, playing music up to eight hours a day. Upon the death of the Maharaja, Ali Akbar moved to Bombay (now Mumbai), the movie
capital of India, where, to his father's distress, he began to compose film music. When his father Ustad Alauddin Khan heard that Ali Akbar was working on film music, he angrily sent a telegram saying: “From today you are no longer my son." However, when Ustad Alauddin Khan himself went to see the movie "Khudhito Pashan,” he questioned h clbse' friend- "Who composed this music? This is great!” He was told that the music had been composed by his son. On hearing this, he wrote a letter to Ali Akbar saying: "You can go ahead
and compose film music. I withdraw my last telegram.”
In 1954, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan encountered the notable Yehudi Menuhin, one of the 20th century's greatest western musicians. Menuhin sought to introduce the young talent to the western audiences. So Ali Akbar flew to the west in 1955, first to England and then USA. He had the fyopour tube the firpt, Indian musician to play on western television. In 1955 in New York he recorded the first ever long play record of North Indian classical music. The album, incorporating Raaga Sindhu Bhairavi and Raaga Pilu Barowa, was introduced by Yehudi Menuhin announcing the scale, counting the 16 beats of teen taal and demonstrating the drone.
Ustad Ali Akbar Khan had many credits to his name, having bagged the President of India Award twice over, and as a recipient of the Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan. In the United States, he was invited to play at the inaugural ceremonies of President Kennedy and, in 1991, he received the MacArthur Foundation Genius Fellowship in recognition of his work in trans-
mining and enhancing the musical tradition of North India. In 1993 he received the Bill Graham Lifetime Achievement Award. From 1970 to 1998 he was nominated for the Grammy Award five times. But due to some technical hitches he declined the nomination. In 1994 the Ali Akbar Foundation was set up to archive and preserve the music of the Seni Baba Alauddin Gharana so that .fptmq .gsjierations, could access and research it.
Let us all pray for his eternal peace.
The writer is a sitar player and an academic.