Homage to Bismillah Khan

Residents of the Bhirung Raut Ki Gali, where Ustad Bismillah Khan was born on March 21, 1916, were in shock. His cousin, 94-year old Mohd. Idrish Khan had tears in his eyeas. Shubhan Khan, the care-taker of Bismillah’s land, recalled : “Whenever in Dumaraon, he would give two rupees to the boys and five rupees to the girls of the locality”.

He was very keen to play shehnai again in the local Bihariji’s Temple where he had started playing shehnai with his father, Bachai Khan, at the age of six. His original name was Quamaruddin and became Bismillah only after he became famous as a shehnai player in Varanasi.

His father Bachai Khan was the official shehnai player of Keshav Prasad Singh, the Maharaja of the erstwhile Dumaraon estate, Bismillah used to accompany him. For Bismillah Khan, the connection to music began at a very early age. By his teens, he had already become a master of the shehnai. On the day India gained freedom, Bismillah Khan, then a sprightly 31 year old, had the rare honour of playing from Red Fort. But Bismillah Khan won’t just be remembered for elevating the shehnai from an instrument heard only in weddings and naubatkhanas to one that was appreciated in concert halls across the world. His life was a testimony to the plurality that is India. A practicing Muslim, he would take a daily dip in the Ganga in his younger days after a bout of kustiin Benia Baga Akhada. Every morning, Bismillah Khan would do riyaazat the Balaji temple on the banks of the river. Even during his final hours in a Varanasi hospital, music didn’t desert Bismillah Khan. A few hours before he passed away early on Monday, the shehnai wizard hummed a thumri to show that he was feeling better. This was typical of a man for whom life revolved around music.

Throughout his life he abided by the principle that all religions are one. What marked Bismillah Khan was his simplicity and disregard for the riches that come with musical fame. Till the very end, he used a cycle rickshaw to travel around Varanasi. But the pressure of providing for some 60 family members took its toll during his later years.