My Music Diary

Pt. Arvind Parikh speaks on Ustad Vilayat Khan My association with Ustad Vilayat Khan saheb is 60 years old. I first met him in 1943 and he was kind enough to accept me as his student. I had actually come to Bombay from Ahmedabad to audition for All India Radio since I had learnt the sitar for a couple of years. It was sheer chance that, as I got off the train, I bumped into a friend who told me Ustad Vilayat Khan was coming to his house. I was a great admirer of Khan saheb and told my friend I would love to meet him. When Khan saheb heard I was going to audition for the radio in a few hours, he asked me to play for him. He knew I was going to fail because I was just no good. But he still taught me a few compositions. He even phoned the radio station and told them, 'I am sending one of my students. Look after him.' If I had any kind of merit, I should have passed. But I had absolutely no merit whatsoever. Yet, as far as I was concerned, the trip to Bombay was fru...

Respected Khansaheb: Two days ago, at midnight, my brother, Satish, called up to say that you are travelling on a flight to freedom, a one-way journey as the sole passenger with no accompanists. My heart ached to realise that your rare appearance by choice has now become a no-show hereafter. Every one who visits this earth has to take this journey mandatorily with no exception even if that person happens to be a great artiste called Ustad Vilayat Khan, “whose music did not merely regale the ‘kansens’ spread across the globe but made their otherwise mundane journey of life comfortable, soothing and filled with pure joy and love”. You seem to be a little surprised as to who this person is, who is writing to you, despite not having met you ever. Khansaheb, the issue is not whether you know me but the fact that there are countless hearts like mine who know you for your munificent gift of melody through your eagerly awaited private and public appearances. This communication to you ...

Even after days of his passing away, the notes of Ustad Vilayat Khan's Sitar can be heard in the air, says SUNITA BUDDHIRAJA. I was just about five or six years old. My mother would drag me to the annual Shankarlal Music Festival in Delhi, organised in the open air grounds of Modern School. Most of tjem were all-night programmes. Although I have memories of listening to various artistes, I learnt their significance of these artists and their instruments much later. On one such night, I saw a tall gentleman in white kurta and churidaar pajama, holding something like a round box that had a long wooden trunk with a number of metallic strings tied to it. This was my impression of the instrument. My mother told me that the gentleman was Ustad Vilayat Khan and the instrument was Sitar. He took position on the stage and touched the strings of Sitar, creating a whole universe of love, nature and bond. Forty years later I recall that it was the first recital during which ...

Ustad Vilayat Khan with Enayet Hossain on stage. I have been following this newsgroup and the threads on Ustad Vilayat Khan for some time now...and thought I would share my experiences with him for those of you who truly loved the master...This is my personal experience with him, so please guys, take it with a grain of salt...you can say this is biased...but isnt every perception we have as human beings a bit biased? I came to this the U.S. when I was only 4 years old...My father is a well known music teacher based in he East Coast, Hamid Hossain...My grandfather was a musician in West Bengal, Ustad Kader Buksh...So, I started my learning of the tabla at 6 years...Well, needless to say, I was not very interested in music, especially Indian Classical music...But I was forced to play, it being a family tradition...What changed me was when my dad gave me a recording of Vilayat Khan Sahab at the age of 9...It was the YAMAN recording on the EMI label, which I think was ...