“By now you’d have realised I am not Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, who has had to cancel his performance due to illness. I am not fit to fill his shoes. But I am delighted to play for you, I know how artists long to perform in Chennai with its discerning audience.” This was Shujaat Husain Khan’s opening salvo, which was received with delighted laughter at The Hindu November Fest, at The Music Academy.
As it turns out, those who cancelled their tickets for this concert were unlucky. For Shujaat Khan provided ‘Sitar for the Soul’ with a genuineness rarely seen in today’s glitz-ridden performance scenario.
He overcame the burden of being the inimitable Vilayat Khan’s son by bringing out the best in his Imdadkhani gharana — with élan, poignancy, and a charm. Nor did he allow dissatisfactions with acoustics to interfere with his mood or flow. And his comradeship with Amit Choubey (tabla) and Sumesh Narayanan (mridangam) created a sense of unity.
Shujaat Khan single-handedly filled the vast stage for 40 minutes, commanding unflagging attention from the audience as he unfolded raag Yamankalyan. No delving in ati vilambit slow motion alaap , but no loss of depth either as the ustad explored the raga’s antique splendour, infused with his own feel for its gossamer romance.
Inspired by his father
The gamak s and meend s of his gharana sprang from effortless fingers and an ardent heart. It was thrilling to hear whole phrases, played by oscillating a single note, a special feature of the sensitive, sophisticated gayaki stylistics developed by his father. These phrases were long, intricate, and intensely controlled. They had nuances so dainty that they took your breath away.
The jod was the crowning glory where rhythms of accelerating speeds were created with stylised majesty due to that segment, layered with a mellifluousness that refused to turn notes in faster rhythms into percussive beats. The jhala was a delight. The artist did not strive to create any “see-what-I-can-do” razzmatazz by heightening the volume, or deploy triple repetitions designed for applause. He simply drew you into his own world of reverberant sound. He allowed you to participate without manipulation. You almost didn’t know when each section ended.
The sprightly composition balanced both emotional forays and playful filigree, enhanced by the tabla’s varying the accenting of the familiar teen taal . And what adroit infusions of the shuddha madhyam ! The note glistened in and out — and absolutely in proportion. Equally adroit was the use of an unexpected pause here and there, like a caesura creating an anticipatory glow in a poem.
Providing percussion for a style based on complex levels of fastidious nuancing and melodic subtlety must be a challenge. As if to reward Choubey’s and Narayanan’s self control and empathy, Shujaat Khan decided to elongate the drut section, allowing them to participate with speed and energy.
However, the high, unvarying volume of this overlong virtuosic exercise sacrificed intricacy and modulation. After a point, it became trying to the ears, numbed the mind, and broke the string.
Celebrating verse
The ustad packed up after this Yamankalyan foray. But audience demand for a folk song made him pick up the instrument, this time to accompany him as he sang, giving merely a glimpse of his love for poetry, and his haunting treatment of lyrics. He packaged Krishna Bihari Noor’s Zindagi se badi sazaa hi nahin and Amir Khusro’s Chaap tilak , throwing in a bit of Vaishnav janato ” to round it off. Great choices but a casual medley. This musical hopscotch proved an abrupt, unsatisfactory finale to a concert which showcased the best and the brilliant in the first half.
