KARACHI, May 5: Only six days after a stirring sitar recital by Nafees Ahmad at the Pakistan Arts Council, Karachi, the PAC auditorium was once again the venue of another impressive sitar concert. This time the performer was Ikhlaq Husain, son of well-known sitarnawaz Imdad Husain.
In order to make a mark in the realm of classical music one needs to be fortunate to have an ustad, a guru, who is also kind and generous to the disciple. Sitar player Ikhlaq Husain is one such lucky person. His father, Ustad Imdad Husain, who trained Ikhlaq, had himself blossomed when he had the blessings of his father, Ustad Ahmadi Khan, and his uncle, the famous sarangi player Ustad Zahoori Khan.
Imdad spent his formative years in Radio Pakistan, Karachi, which was in those days the hub of classical music where scholars like Zulfiqar Ali Bukhari, Rashid Ahmad, Shahid Ahmad Dehlavi, Saleem Geelani, Enver Enayetullah and others interacted with musicians. And what a galaxy it was! Ustads Bundu Khan, Umrao Khan, Ramzan Khan, Rafiq Ghaznavi, Zahoori Khan, Nathoo Khan, Nihal Abdullah, Hamid Husain, Wajid Husain, Wilayat Khan, Mehdi Hasan – the list is long.
Classical music was practised without the mistaken prejudices that in later years – particularly during the Zia-ul-Haq era – brought it to such a sorry pass. (Ironically, for some reason, General Zia had become somewhat fond of Imdad and on a few occasions allowed him to play at the President House and entertain visiting dignitaries!).
The evening of May 4 saw Ikhlaq Husain present raags Jhinjhoti and Jaijaiwanti to a very receptive audience, comprising senior music lovers as well as the young crowd that now turns up regularly at classical music programmes in Karachi.
Raag Jhinjhoti is a sampooran (heptatonic) raag of Khammach scale, i.e., it has all the seven notes in its ascending and descending order. The famous Mehdi Hasan ghazals Gulon Mein Rung Bhare Baad-i-Naubahar Chalay and Nawak Andaz Jidhar Deeda-i-Jaanan Hoon Ge were composed in this raag, while another ghazal sung by Mehdi Hasan, Taza Hawa Bahar Ki Dil Ka Malal Le Gai was in raag Jaijaiwanti.
In his 75-minute exposition of Jhinjhoti, what impressed most was the musician’s masterly use of meend (stretching of notes using microtones) and the variations in difficult taans (fast musical phrases or runs) particularly gamak ki tans (a sort of trill). And, of course, his tayyari (virtuosity) was very impressive too. With the master hand Ustad Bashir Khan accompanying him on the tabla, it was a treat for tired ears.
Ikhlaq later played Jaijaiwanti, another raag of the Khammach scale. It is a khado-sampooran (hexatonic-heptatonic) raag having six notes in the ascending and seven in the descending order. In the bilampat and drut rendition of this raag he played Ustad Fayyaz Khan’s composition, Moray Mandir Ab Lau Naheen Aaye.
Ikhlaq has been living in New York since 2001 and has established himself as a soloist and an instrumentalist, who occasionally does fusion music in a quartet with well-known piano, saxophone and tabla players. His performances at Harvard and MIT universities and New York’s Central Park were much admired. He also performs at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington DC and Pakistan Consulate in New York whenever invited.
Coming back to Ikhlaq’s father Ustad Imdad Husain, one of the finest teachers of the art of sitar playing, he is willing to teach anyone who solicits his guidance. Some names of his previous shagirds – Parveen Rahim, Kishwar Shah, Dr Ghazala Aziz, Dr Azra, Dr Inam, Shams, Imran, Shahid Chishti, Osman Ghani, Rizwan Beg, my own daughter Sadia – come to mind, whom he taught assiduously for various periods of time. It is another matter that most of his shagirds did not have the patience and commitment to continue learning. With Ikhlaq, however, it was a different matter. Living under the same roof and under the watchful eyes of his father, and also having the verve and determination to learn, he succeeded and became one of Pakistan’s most accomplished sitar players. Sixteen-year-old Turab Ali (Imdad’s grandson) is another example. The youngster is fast turning into a proficient artiste.
It is worth mentioning that Ikhlaq has also learnt from the late Ustad Kabir Khan and Pandit Ravi Shankar of India. In 1991, he was helped by Shashi Tripathi, the then Deputy Consul General of India in Karachi, to go to Delhi on a two-year scholarship and learn from Pandit-ji.