Being no man of letters my initial impulse when seeking a title for this humble and inadequate tribute to the departed maestro was to choose "The late Ustad Ameer Khan:a thumbnail sketch". But it flashed on me almost immediately that when speaking of immortals one does not use the word 'late', because they continue to live amongst us ever afterwards. One does not refer to late Ludwing Van Beethoven, late Mian Tansen or late Johann Sebastian Bach: and a "thumbnail sketch" would have sounded trite if not frivolous. Hence the word 'vignette', which, under cover of the Oxford Dictionary, could venture to mean "a slight word sketch", as it bound to be incomplete and with a background somewhat blurred.
Around 1948-49, when I was a teenager ...
(There seems to be a whole page missing from the original 'souvenir', but what can be inferred is that the author is sharing with us his experience of a raga he was not familiar with. AC)
... great raga. The venue was the ancestral home of Sri Jnan Prakash Ghosh at 25, Dixon Lane, where Ustad Amir Khan gave a midnight demonstration. From the opening notes the raga sounded like Malkauns to my immature and scant-educated musical perception. But how could it be Malkauns? Within a few moments this illusion was dispelled by the appearance of the two notes which are universally accepted as total taboo so far as Malkauns was concerned: pancham, and shortly thereafter suddh rishav.
I shall never forget the impact of these two notes. The impression created then on my young mind might appear rather melodramatic at this age, to a hardened adult, but its genuineness was unquestionable.
Whenever pancham appeared, after a series of other notes, I felt as if I had been looking intently at a dress studded with various gems, but had missing one brilliant diamond, the most dazzling of all, which was most of the time kept hidden from view and only rarely uncovered by a shifting hand of the absent minded wearer of the dress (who was unimportant). Whenever uncovered, this diamond outshone all the other jewels into insignificance. The raga, I later learnt, was Kausi Kanada. Whenever we reached suddh rishav, it was as if after a day of heart-breaking toil, strain and worries, my weary head last found a pillow to rest upon.
Years went by. I heard the Ustad on many more occasions. At that time he used to dwell for about two hours on whichever raga he took up. Being unaccustomed to his unique style,I thought that he was repetitive and prolix.It took me many more years of mental labour to reach the threshold of the understanding that whenever the Ustad was elaborating a note (playfully caressing would be a better expression) he was trying to extract its utmost musical potential by approaching, modulating and embroidering it in a hundred different ways. My delighted amazement knew no bounds, and I understood why I had earlier,in my crass ignorance, considered him to be long winded and somewhat boring. I think quite a few listeners and devotees of classical Indian music may have gone through the same experience before they could really reach the magnificent and endless repertoire of this musician of musicians.
Many admirers have dwelt fondly on his nobility of bearing and impeccable manners. He was undoubtedly one of those whom Nature had stamped with her unmistakable crown of born-nobility. We do not find his name in the handbooks of noble ancestry, but his mere presence, bearing and demeanour
convinced everyone that he was indeed an "Amir", a nobleman. I was fortunate enough to come in personal contact with him on a few occasions, and I can assert without fear of contradiction that the Ustad's entire waking life (perhaps his dream life too) was attuned to the music of the spheres, and that he was hearing, composing and editing soundless music even when talking banalities or performing other social chores.
For all other musicians, whatever their standard, gharana, caste or creed, Khan Shaheb had a warm and sympathetic heart, and the invariable comment "Achchha hi gata hai" (sings quite well). This was not mere polite form: but it was born of the realization that the path which a sincere student of music has to cover is heart-breaking and endless, and so all efforts to pursue it deserve praise, whatever the extent of progress.
As a humble student of instrumental music, I am tempted to refer to the intense fascination which the Ustad held for instrumentalists. There is no doubt that in our world of classical music, instrumentalists (pioneered by the great veenkars) have always held a conspicuous place of honour; not merely because of their intrinsic worth, but also because their having evolved through painstaking efforts many special types of improvisation peculiar to strings alone which a voice could not produce. This territory, which we might label as tantrakari, was tending to become the sole cruising zone for our instrumentalists, till some of them remembered their old area of origin, the human voice, and "ventured thither wards" again. To these instrumentalists Amir Khan will always be a source of endless inspiration.
The Ustad firmly believed in, and sought to approach with his music, an Unknown Presence. His music inevitably suggested that this Unknown Presence hears it distinctly when a new born human being utters his first feeble cry; that this Presence keeps vigil over the man's entire life, and it is towards this Presence that a man's soul strives till his death. And music is the product of this eternal longing for that Supreme Reality, until the final reunion. It appears that the Ustad used to perceive, during moments of his own supreme creative efforts, a sort of transient union with this Unknown Presence which was the object of his eternal quest.
Between that overwhelming night at 25 Dixon Lane and today there is a gap of 26 years. I have heard many more renderings of the raga Kausi Kanada, quite a few of them by the Ustad himself, but it seemed be never sang that particular Asthai, with the breathtaking appearance of pancham, again. My longing for that song has grown and grown, side by side with the conviction that he must have absentmindedly left it somewhere behind him, which was confirmed by my subsequent queries to his other admirers and disciples. Meanwhile, time and age have had their inevitable effects. The fond and once vivid recollection of that wonderful song has now receded and lapsed into a nebulous state: but still, from amidst the haze of obscured memory and eroded details, that glittering sparkling pancham shines through with untarnished brilliance.
In my desperate yearning, I had decided that one of these days I would request the Ustad to remember and sing this long lost wonder song. But unfortunately I delayed the whole thing somehow, little suspecting how soon and how mercilessly I was going to be checkmated by Providence!
(Edited by Andrew Campana)