Have you ever heard a melody that made you stop whatever you were doing — and feel melancholic, sanguine, introspective and meditative all at once? Just listen to the tracks from Lost Songs of the Silk Road, The Rain, or Naina Lagai Ke. As the sitar player gently pulls the strings of the instrument he holds lovingly in his hand, you fall in love with dear old life all over again. Sitar maestro Shujaat Husain Khan certainly has the power to nudge his listeners into a trance like no other, one note at a time.
In conversation with CE after a spellbinding performance at a musical event called Barkha Ritu in Shilpakala Vedika, he says, “I started playing in Hyderabad when I was a young boy. The winters here saw many music festivals, but for some reason, there are fewer events now. That is a loss for this city; people should step up and bring these music celebrations back to their glory.”
A musician of the seventh generation in his lineage, he was trained by his father, the renowned sitar maestro Ustad Vilayat Khan. Shujaat’s initiation into music came very early — he began practising on a specially designed miniature sitar at the age of three. By six, his talent was evident, and he was already performing on stage as a child prodigy.
But with eyes on him all the time, was that little boy ever nervous? “I don’t remember if I was nervous. But when one is young, there is a courage that usually comes from stupidity!” he quips, before drifting down memory lane and saying, “But when I completed school, I realised that I wouldn’t be treated like a child anymore.”
Expectations around engulfed him like a tornado; it wasn’t all that easy to be his father’s son. “People would like to believe it’s an easy journey — if you’re a politician’s son, all you have to do is put a garland around your neck and, well, you are the next-generation politician. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen in music. Children of legends are compared to their parents and expected to deliver great results immediately, which is very unfair. So yes, though I got my foot in the door as the son of a legend, after that, I was on my own,” he says.
And in the decades that followed, this leading exponent of the Imdadkhani Gharana of sitar appeared at India’s most respected music festivals and toured widely across the world. His album with Iranian musician Kayhan Kalhor and tabla maestro Sandeep Das, ‘The Rain’, was even nominated for a Grammy Award. Indeed, Shujaat has made it — on his own.
Perhaps the most stunning part of his performances is the gayaki ang style, passed on to him by his father. In this style, the instrument is used to mirror the nuances and expressiveness of the human voice. He explains, “Essentially, the strings are plucked only at the points where words are rendered in the performance. That is why people perhaps find gayaki ang attractive; it is just pure. I would say that 90% of North Indian instrumentalists follow the path of gayaki ang introduced by my father.”
Shujaat’s outlook on life is simple and honest. He isn’t pleased with phone-oglers in his audience, never hesitating to tell them off so they can soak into his music. And he certainly isn’t a fan of songs featuring alcohol and vulgar lyrics. “Music can be fun, sensual, crazy, and so many things. But I opine that it cannot be vulgar,” he states.
Unlike many musicians who can name their favourite raags immediately, Shujaat chuckles and says, “I simply cannot. But I will say this: don’t we, as humans, come across different people in our lives? Sometimes, a person may be wonderful but we may not connect with them. This holds true for raags as well; I connect with some and don’t connect with others.”
There is a wisdom in his voice that perhaps only comes with an openness to lifelong learning. But Shujaat admits that when he was younger, he would sometimes play to prove himself to those around him. As an experienced musician now, he plays purely for the joy of music. “The sitar is a beautiful instrument that allows me to express myself to the world. At the end of the day, I’m just a musician playing music...” he says with poetic candour, his voice trailing off perhaps into a musical abyss.