RMIM Archive Article "334".
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian
#
# RMIM Archives..
# Subject: Great Masters 2a: Bismillah Khan
#
# Posted by: Rajan Parrikar (parrikar@colorado.edu)
# Source: India Today
# Author: Inderjit Badhwar
#
Namashkar.
I found the following attached feature unexpectedly while foraging in
a friend's 'circulating' library (aka the raddi shop).
Bismillah Khan is a musician extraordinaire, nonpareil in his handling
and treatment of the swara. Viewed specifically from the prism of the
swara, with all that it entails, he is indisputably the greatest
Hindustani instrumentalist of our times. The Ustad's music is readily
accessible to all but it is deceptively simple, its nuance audible
only to the patient, careful ear and its complex structure and content
visible only to the eye of analysis. However, to Bismillah, complexity
is not an end in itself but a means towards aesthetic fulfillment,
and, as he himself hints, towards realising the most uplifting in
music and bathing in its wake. In this respect his art is reminiscent
of Bach. And in these times when the term "genius" is much
misunderstood, misapplied and abused, it is Bismillah's name that
lends substance and credence to the word.
Warm regards,
r
BISMILLAH KHAN - A Mystic Union
PHOTO ESSAY by Raghu Rai TEXT filed by Inderjit Badhwar in Varanasi
From: INDIA TODAY, July 15, 1986, pp. 122-131
A steady, rythmic thudding fills the air as hundreds of young Shias
who have marched in the procession to the ziyarat of the martyred Imam
Hussein in Varanasi - a replica of the shrine in Karbala, Iraq - beat
their chests and sing a dirge. Bismillah Khan, who is part of this
alam ka juloos stands at the entrance to the tomb, holding aloft the
alam (Hussain's standard) in the memory of the slain grandson of
Prophet Mohammed. He tries to join in the song but his mouth quivers
and he starts to sob openly, wiping his tears with corners of the
flag. Veiled women in black weep as the lengthening shadow of the neem
tree brings in the evening. Aya hai karbala mein gharib-ul watan koi,
the mourners sing, sub kuchh hai is jahan mein lekin mere karim, bhai
ko zibah hote na dekhe bahen koi (let no sister ever suffer the fate
of having to watch her brother slaughtered). On this special day of
prayer and mourning, Khan Sahib has already spent two hours at the
shrine which includes replicas of the rauzaas (tombs) of Fatima Zehra,
the Prophet's daughter, and Hazrat Abbas, Hussain's younger
brother. He has visited each site, dressed in a white kurta and
pyjama, offered incense and prostrated himself in adulation. As he
completes his rounds, stopping finally at the rauzaa of Imam Hussain,
he reads out the names of the 72 shaheeds (martyrs) of Karbala, who
were butchered in the 7th century A.D. when Hussain refused to assent
to Yezid's Caliphate. His head bowed, arms streched out in
supplication, Khan Sahib mutters a prayer: "You gave me
everything. You gave me your life. Ya Khuda, Ya Rahmatkaar. My tears
are the tears of gratitude." When finally the long evening turns into
dusk, he washes his feet and settles down on arthritic knees, swathed
in heavy bandages, to two hours of namaaz - a lonely, beatific figure
doubled over in pain and ecstasy.
"Music, sur, namaaz. It is the same thing. We reach Allah in different
ways. A musician can learn. He can play beautifully. But unless he can
mix his music with religion, unless he strives to meet God, he will
only have kalaa (art) but no assar (mystical union). He will always
stand at the ocean and never reach the heights of purity."
Khan Saheb is soaked in religion. It is his sustaining life-force. But
it is this same religion that damns music, condemns it as an act of
rape. For the Shias, music is haraam (taboo). But for the man who took
the shehnai out of the wedding processions and naubatkhaanaas - the
shehnai player, traditionally was to be heard and not seen - and who
was able to weave patterns of dazzling intricacy into his music as he
brought it to the centre-stage of classical respectability, his
instrument is also his Quran. Where others see conflicts and
contradictions between music and religion, he sees only a divine
unity.
"When maulvis and maulanas ask me about this, I tell them, sometimes
with irritation, that I can't explain it. I feel it. I feel it. If
music is haraam then why has it reached such heights? Why does it make
me soar towards heaven? The religion of music is one. All others are
different. I tell the maulanas, this is the only haqeeqat
(reality). This is the world. My namaaz is the seven shuddh and five
komal surs. And if this is haraam, then I say: aur haraam karo, aur
haraam karo (if music be a thing of sin, sin on)."
"I was once in an argument with some Shia maulavis in Iraq. They were
all well-versed in their subject and were making several effective
arguments about reasons why music ought to be damned. At first I was
left speechless. Then I closed my eyes and began to sing Raga Bhairav:
Allah-hee....Allah-hee....Allah-hee...I continued to raise the
pitch. I opened my eyes and I asked them: 'Is this haraam? I'm calling
God. I'm thinking of Him, I'm searching for Him. Isn't this namaaz?
Why do you call my search haraam?'" They fell silent.
Each year, on the eighth day of Muharram, this devoteee of the Shia
faith who refuses to touch the reed of his shehnai with his lips
unless he has offered his namaaz before sunrise, engages himself in
his own private drama of religious apostasy . Dressed simply in
white, he leads a procession, like a mischievous Pied Piper of
rebellion, playing a silver shehnai reserved specially for the
occasion. The procession winds its way through Varanasi's Byzantine
lanes to the rauzaa of Imam Hussain. Here, just inside the gate, he
sits cross-legged on the dusty ground in the fashion of a mendicant
street ministrel and play for hours, weeping copiously all the time,
while the audience pitches coins into his lap.
This is simple man. A man of tenderness, a gentle private man, yet
given to unbridled display of emotion. When he laughs, the ground
shakes. At 70, he is an immensely handsome man with a princely beard
and eyes which glint with boyish mischief, his only "bad habit" he
apologises, is smoking Wills cigarettes which he puffs with obvious
relish. There is nothing about him that bespeaks his fame - his
honorary doctorates, his Padma Vibhushan, his concerts in almost every
capital around the world, his dozens of best-selling record albums.
On India's first Republic Day ceremony it was Khan Sahib who poured
his heart out in Raaga Kaafi from the Red Fort. On a more pop level it
was Khan Sahib who composed that magic film number 'Dil ka khilauna
hai toot gaya' for the film Goonj Uthi Shehnai. He has made money but
spent it just as fast. He supports nearly 100 relatives, including 10
children.
His house in Varanasi, in Sarai Harha, is an ample but decrepit
structure. His living room which also serves as guest room, is
sparsely furnished with creaky wooden benches and a large takht on
which, at given time of the day, his children perform namaaz,
oblivious of guests and visitors. Still in incessant demand as a
player he travels by train regularly with his troupe, often by second
class. He hates to fly. And when travel arrangements are being made,
the house buzzes with activity as instruments are laid out, ancient
steel trunks and torn British Airways flight-bags are packed with
clothes and lunch boxes stuffed with rice and samosas. The shehnai
player, whose name is familiar even to the international jet set as
that of Ravi Shankar, travels by cycle rickshaw. And as he wheels down
the city's streets at the head of a caravan of rickshaws, smiling at
well wishers, he looks as happy as a British Lord in a Rolls Royce.
Until Bismillah Khan burst upon the centre-stage of Indian music with
his strange little instrument at the All-India Music Conference in
Calcutta in 1937 at the age of 20, the shehnai was considered an
instrument reserved for wedding processions or Hindu religious
rituals. His ancestors were court musicians in the princely state of
Dumraon in Bihar. His uncle, the late Ali Bux 'Vilayatu', was a
shehnai player attached to Varanasi's Vishwanath Temple. Khan Sahib
remembers him as a hard task master, "who may not be able to conjure
up the rain with his playing but would bring you to tears in a
minute."
"I was never interested in studies. While others were at their books,
I used to sneak out and play marbles or blow on Mamu's (uncle's)
shehnai. He always knew I would be a shehnai-player."
Even as a devout Shia, Khan Sahib is also a devotee of Saraswati, the
Hindu Goddess of music. And at the age of 12, he recalls, he received
a signal - a peculiarly Hindu signal - that his sadhana had been
rewarded. He recalls:
"Mamu used to do his riyaz (practice) at the temple of Balaji (an
avtaar of Vishnu) for 18 years. He told me to do the same thing. I
would begin my riyaz at the mandir at 7 pm and end at 11 pm during
which time I usually played four ragas. After a year and half, Mamu
told me, 'if you see anything just don't talk about it'. One night as
I was playing, deep in meditation, I smelled something. It was an
indescribable scent, something like sandalwood and jasmine and
incense. I thought it was aroma of Ganges. But the scent got more
powerful. I opened my eyes - and when I speak about it I still get
goose flesh - when I opened my eyes, there was Balaji standing right
next to me, kamandal in hand, exactly as he is pictured. My door was
locked from inside. Nobody was allowed to enter when I did my
riyaz. He said 'play, son'. But I was in cold sweat. I stopped
playing."
"He smiled, and disappeared. I unlocked the door. I thought a faqir
may have come in. I took a lantern and searched all streets. They
were empty. I ran home, ate quickly and slept. Mamu had understood
what had happened. But he teased me, pretending he knew nothing, But
as I blurted out the experience, Mamu slapped me, because he had asked
me earlier not to talk about anything that might happen to me. Then he
kissed me and asked me to go and buy vegetables. Mamu always told me
'never look back, keep going forward'. Even now I go to Balaji's
mandir alone, at night and play all by myself. When I play before
others, in my heart I'm listening to my gurus. In my heart, they clap
for me at the appropriate time."
"In music, the sur is a clean thing, it is a pure thing. It cannot be
deceived and it cannot deceive anybody. It is like a mirror in which
you see the world, in which I see my own face when I play. When I
start playing, the mind wanders here and there and takes me with
it. But all the time I am striving for the assar. But when that comes,
when the sur clicks, it is like I am unconscious and the heart has
taken over. Sometimes I don't understand who is playing. Or I feel
that I am playing at the mazaar, or in front of ancient sages. And all
I can think of is 'he mere maalik tu mujhe lele (God, take me away),
tu hi nirankaar, tu hee phool aur phal mein (God, You alone are
formless, You alone in flower or fruit).'"
"I am getting old now. Not in my heart. But in my body. The heart
yearns to go on and on but this body sometimes tires and these
wretched knees start aching after four hours of playing. And I now
have that all-too-human worry. Thirty years ago, I used to think I had
conquered or was about to conquer the world. What foolishness! Now I
say, Bismillah, you haven't reached anywhere. The world may know and
listen to your ragas, but Bismillah, life will soon finish and your
yearnings will still remain. This music is still an ocean. I want to
cross it. But I have barely reached the shore. I haven't yet even
taken a dip in it."
Khan Sahib has not groomed a disciple. He teaches students when he has
the time but there is no special heir. Of his six sons - Mahtab,
Nayab, Hussein, Famin, Kazim, and Nazim - the youngest, Nazim, plays
the tabla.
"The days of adaab (old world manners) are gone," he says. "Musicians
now go to school. They do not do sadhana with gurus. Thay want
instant results. But the great old masters who did their penance -
Fayyaz Khan, Abdul Karim Khan, Onkar Nath - died poor. No one knows
about their sacrifices. Consider Swami Haridas. He produced
Tansen. But no one knows Swami Haridas. They had no time for their own
lives. No time for their families, their children. They are very few
in this age who can do the real riyaaz. You have to have the ability
to wipe yourself out. You have to get up before sunrise on freezing
mornings, offer namaaz, go to the mandir, and begin practice. These
days musicians want to rise at 10 am to go to music schools. But which
music school has produced a Fayyaz or an Abdul Karim Khan? I say,
leave those schools aur aao maidan mein (and come out into the real
battle). But you have to have the discipline and the tenacity. Someone
like me can give his time to a student, but the taker has to be
willing to take, to wrest that time from his guru. He must find the
time for his own tapasya. I remember when I was a boy and often my
guru, tired from the day, would retire at 4 am. I would be awake. I
had been waiting for him. I used to go to his bedroom and begin
pressing his tired feet. He would look at me and he would know what I
wanted. He would shake off his slumber and come alive. He would give
me his shehnai and tell me: 'all right son, start playing.'"
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian