Audiobooks are essentially spoken word renditions of texts and do not feature music even when the subject matter is related to music. But, in a first of its kind in the world, an Indian book by Namita Devidayal - The Sixth String of Vilayat Khan will have relevant music incorporated as part of the narrative.
Mumbaikar and Princeton graduate Devidayal, who authored the award winning "The Music Room" 11 years ago, confirmed that incorporation of music in the audiobook is a novelty. "It will also feature a conversation with Lyle Warchowsky, the man who produced many of Vilayat Khan's US recordings," she said and added, "The music company which owns most of Ustad Vilayat Khan saab's recordings was taking a long time to come aboard and when they did they quoted an amount which would make it impossible."
She spoke of how the New Yorker Jew Warchowsky had had a chance encounter with Indian classical music and fell in love with it. "He had come to India to record my guru and Jaipur gharana doyenne Dhondutai (a disciple of the legendary Ustad Alladiya Khan saab who features in Devidayal's first book) and was became a great fan of Ustad Vilayat Khan with who he recorded some amazing music."
She remembers meeting him first in New York after they had interacted on e-mail. "He seemed to be a bit sceptical of me to begin with. Later, when he saw how passionate I was about telling the story he opened up and was very generous in recounting his experiences and also agreed to sell us the music he had recorded with the sitar legend," she said. "When the audio book was being recorded, the recordist also expressed amazement at how Warchowsky had used state of the art technology to record Ustad Vilayat Khan saab in the best studios not cutting any corners even those many years ago," she further added.
A thrilled Gautam Padmanabhan, the CEO of Westland Ltd which has published The Sixth String of Vilayat Khan, said, "As a publisher we're always looking to innovate to find new ways to interact with readers. This book gave us the opportunity to explore new ways for the audience to experience and interact with the text." He further informed that the audiobook is in its final stages of production. "We hope to release it in December."
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