| Told by | Vidushi Subhra Guha |
| Obtained by | Suranjita Paul |
| Date | 5th December 2016 |
| Place | Aasha Co-Operative Housing Society Ltd .93, Deshapran Sashmal Road Flat-III / D-10. Kolkata -700033 |
| About the speaker | Vidushi Subhra Guha is a leading female vocalist of Agra gharana. She was a scholar of ITC Sangeet Research Academy in Kolkata and later she was nominated as a Guru in the Sangeet Research Academy. |
| Tags | 1988, Vilayat Khan, Bade Gulam Ali Khan, Vilayat Hussain Khan, Pran Piya, Yunus Hussain Khan, Raag Jog, Sthayi, Antara, Notation, Zila Khan, ITC-SRA |
| Language | Bengali |
Vidushi Subhra Guha speaks:
Verbatim:
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?? ???…?
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Verbatim by: Dr. Suranjita Paul
Translation:
Ustad Vilayat Khan visited the Sangeet research Academy in 1998. The Tenth Anniversary Celebrations saw the presence of almost all musicians, including Vilayat Khan, who had come and stayed there for a week. I had a great adoration for him. Even if I would touch his instrument, I got excited and gave the same expression what I would give if Bade Ghulam Ali Khan comes here before me at present. I used to be close to him at all times, going to him at 7 in the morning and return to my hostel room on campus at 11 p.m. There were so many things he would say, such beautiful singing too. Maybe not everything what he was saying would be true, but the way he was presenting those enchanted me and the bandish that he sang, I felt the most melodious thing I had ever heard.
Let me tell you of an incident of that time. The evening before he was due to leave, he asked me – “You know of Vilayat Hussain Khan, considered one of the greatest Ustads of the Agra Gharana, father of Ustad Yunus Khan, whose pen name was Pran Piya. Do you know Bandish composed by him?”
I said, “Yes, I have learned this,” and sang to him a Bandish in Jog, in quite difficult Ektaal.
I sang the Asthayi once. He said, Sing the Asthayi once again. I sang the Antara. He was all praise and asked me to sing the Antara again. In total, I sang the Asthayi and the Antara twice each. He said, “Beta, I am going back tomorrow. Please make a notation of this for me.”
The next morning I had prepared the notation and went to him. He was scheduled to leave at 11 or 12. He took the notation and kept it in his pocket.
“Didn’t you check if the notation is all right?”, I asked.
He said, “I cannot read Hindi. This I have taken for Zila (his daughter). This will be useful for her.”
I was thinking, he praised it so much, and now this…
He said, “You want to hear? You want to hear it from me? Here you go.”
Remember, I had sung the Asthayi and Antara only twice, and that too of a bandish that was quite long. And the very next day, he was saying, “I have not slept well the whole night, I was committing the Bandish to memory.” He sang the entire Bandish, without having put it to paper or having read the notation. He said, “It is now in my memory.” He didn’t have to record it. In his words, “This memory of mine, this is the record. I will never forget this in my lifetime. I did not sleep well at night, so that I could memorized in my mind.”
(Demonstrating the bandish) Can anyone sing this after having listened to it once or twice? It is so long and complicated. Just take a look towards its starting point; it’s quite difficult to start it in accordance with the framed time cycle. But all he needed was the twice repetation of both Asthayi and Antara, that’s enough for him.
Translated by: Arundhati Banerjee
Picture Courtesy: Google
https://zilakhan.wordpress.com/tag/vilayat-khan/
https://www.symphonyspace.org/event/7124/Music/songs-of-the-sufis-ustademaa-zila-khan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnI76xfKkV4
Edited & Designed: Dr.Suranjita Paul
Data processed at SAP-DRS Lab, Department of Instrumental Music,Rabindra Bharati University.