Remembering Ustad Azizuddin Khan

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 Kukarni'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.

Her age may make her stoop, but the pride of her legacy shines across 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 proceeds to demonstrate a complex ascending octave, with effortless ease.

This ease comes from training from an early age under first, the founder of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana Ustad Alladiya Khan and then his grandson Azizuddin for several years. She recounts how, despite being on an ocean of talent, his awkwardness with performances saw him desist from taking the stage ever.

"One of Alladiya Khan's grandsons succumbed to a Diwali cracker injury when he came down to study music from Kolhapur to Mumbai in the early 1930s. None of his grandchildren were since sent across out of a superstition that their lives would also be similarly endangered. His eldest, Burjekhan's son, Baba came to Mumbai defying his parents to train under his grandfather."

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 whose names too we are not aware of. Despite our repeated egging him to perform he shied away since he felt he had not trained in basic gayaki. He would of course publicly claim that his ill-health did not allow him to do so." According to her this troubled him from within and made him a loner.

"But that never made him bitter or hold back from generously giving away what can only be called musical family heirlooms generously to all his students."

On Baba's insistence though she also trained under the the fiery Kesarbai Kerkar who had herself trained extensively under Ustad Alladiya Khan, she says Baba's contribution to her music is unparalleled.

Leading vocalist and vice-chancellor of the Bhatkande Music University at Lucknow too agrees with Dhondutai. "Baba was like a family member and would often come and stay in our Dadar home. He was very close to my father Wamanrao and knew me from a very young age. I remember how affectionately he would train me everytime he came visiting."

She breaks down when recounting an incident at a two-day festival in Jaipur in memory of Ustad Alladiya Khan in 1994.

"I had performed on the first day to a packed auditorium. The next day due to unseasonal heavy rains their was poor turn-out of listeners. The artiste who was supposed to sing, threw tantrum and refused to sing without a packed audiences and stormed off. Baba called me and said I must sing again. I was reluctant since I'd sung just a day before but he insisted. When I began singing the raga Kaushik Kanada which he had taught me many years ago, he wept leaving me too teary-eyed through the performance."

Dhondutai says the women students of the gharana have always done it proud. "What once kept way even stalwart male musicians because of the style's sheer energy requirements, has ended up getting sustained as a legacy almost entirely by women. Whether it is Shruti (Sadolikar) or Ashwini (Bhide), see how brightly they shine as stars in the world of music."

The concert is on September 2nd, 2012; 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm at Gokhale Hall, Vile Parle East