Remembering Ustad Azizuddin Khan Disciples of the late musical stalwart give us an insight into his life

Remembering Ustad Azizuddin Khan

Disciples of the late musical stalwart give us an insight into his life

Guru, Govind dono khade, kaake lagoon paaye? Balihari Guru aapne, Govind diyo bataaye...(I came upon my teacher and the Lord together and wondered who to bow to first. I prostrated at my teacher’s feet, for he showed me the path to the Lord) As she chants this Kabir couplet, Jaipur-Atrauli gharana doyenne Dhondutai Kulkarni’s eyes moisten. “All of us students who learnt from Baba (Ustad Azizuddin Khan), must have done many good deeds over several past births to get a guru like him,” says the octogenarian, who is in the thick of preparations for her late guru ‘s first death anniversary on Sunday, where she will, herself, perform. The pride of her legacy shines every time she corrects her disciple Aditya Khandwe, 25. “This gharana and its teachings require complete surrender and discipline to a point where it flows through your veins and becomes you,” she tells him, and demonstrates a complex ascending octave with effortless ease. This ease comes from training from an early age; first, under the founder of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana, Ustad Alladiya Khan, and then his grandson, Baba , for several years. Since Alladiya was already in his 90s, instead of training Baba in basic gayaki, he decided to make him a repository of all the rare ragas he knew. Dhondutai remembers, “He knew more than 100 such ragas, many of whose names we are not even aware of.” “He shied away from performing in public, but he generously gave away what can only be called musical family heirlooms to all his students,” she adds. Shruti Sadolikar, leading vocalist and vice chancellor of the Bhatkhande Music University at Lucknow, too, agrees with Dhondutai. She breaks down while recounting an incident at a two-day festival in Jaipur in 1994. “I had performed on the first day to a packed auditorium. The next day, due to unseasonal heavy rains, there was a poor turn-out. The artiste who was supposed to sing, threw a tantrum and refused to sing. Baba called me and insisted that I sing again. When I began singing the raga Kaushik Kanada, which he had taught me, he wept.” Dhondutai says the female students of the gharana have always done it proud. “What once kept away even stalwart male musicians because of the style’s sheer energy requirements, has ended up a legacy sustained almost entirely by women. Whether it is Shruti (Sadolikar) or Ashwini (Bhide), see how brightly they shine as stars in the world of music.”