Ballad of a Maverick Musician

I really didn’t know till now that there was such a fine book that had been written, based on the stories that ‘Baba’ Ustad Allauddin Khan saheb had narrated. Baba’s wisdom was revealed like this, spontaneously, through his words. Although what I liked most of all is that, so long ago, a little boy had taken to a task like this with such attentiveness. I remember I had seen Santi babu and Sagar da’s brother Sriman Subhomay in Santiniketan years ago. I had liked the boy very much. I cannot recall in which house exactly, but one afternoon, in one of the houses in Santiniketan itself, Subhomay had arranged for me to take a bath. He was the one who got everything ready and together in a hurry. Other than that, wherever I went in Santiniketan, Subhomay would join me. I liked that a lot. So seeing this book of his after so long, I am amazed and happy at the same time. It is heartbreaking that Subhomay is no longer with us. May God rest his soul in peace.

I have discussed Baba as a man and an artist in the book, Raag-Anuraag. Still, it feels like there is no end to what can be said about him. In this book, Baba has spoken about himself in the first person, in his own words and in perfectly ordinary language, which was, in fact, a particular trait with him. With what unassuming ease he could move from one profound insight to another, even a deeper one, is astonishing to think about! I used to be amazed then as well, when I used to sit in front of him and hear him speak. It felt like Thakur Ramakrishna Dev was preaching to his disciples.

A special strength of this book is Baba’s ability to utter the truth frankly. Towards the beginning itself, Baba admits that he is the descendant of [someone like] the bandit Bhavani Pathak. But recently, to ridicule my book Raag Anuraag, a talented artist has tried to poke a bit of fun at this piece of Baba’s ancestral history. But Baba had never made any secret of it; he always said, ‘Oh, I come from a line of dacoits’ etc. He had a great capacity for coming to terms with all of life’s truths.

One thing that maybe a lot of people will not know is that just as much he loved to talk, he loved to read books. He, in fact, was a bookworm. Papers like Bharatbarsha, Prabasi, Basumati, Sangeet Prabeshika [Sangeet Bigyan Prabeshika] and in Hindi, Maya, Manohar Kahaniya used to be delivered to him regularly.

Apart from that, he used to get hold of all sorts of books whenever he was travelling. Normally, neither his sons nor his disciples could get him to accept even a khili (prepared in triangular shape) of paan that they bought for him. This was because he was extremely obstinate about accepting even a small thing from his disciples. But seeing that this was what he was going to be like, I hatched a plan to bypass his resolve. Whenever I used to leave Maihar for a radio program or on any other excuse, I would buy a bunch of Bangla, Hindi weeklies or monthly papers or books for him. These he came to accept cheerfully, and without any judgment. The range of things he read was also amazing. Starting from the Quran, Gita, Ramayana, Mahabharata to Bankim Chandra and Rabi Thakur to the Dasyu Mohan series, detective writings and books from Battala, he read indiscriminately. It was not as if he read to flex his knowledge, he read simply to please himself. All day, he would be occupied with various tasks, his rewaj (practice) and his classes. His leisure and comfort was in reading books.

One of Baba’s other hobbies was gardening. He used to say that Maihar’s soil was extremely unmelodious and arrhythmic. On top of that, there was water scarcity. Besides, in its soil and water, there was too much lime. Maihar was like a godown of lime, it was as if the whole world’s lime factories had set up shop there. Therefore, getting a plot of grass to take root or to raise a harvest of fruits and flowers there was a tough matter indeed. But since childhood he had that stubborn zeal to wrest the impossible out of life. He took that whole environment as a challenge and jumped in straight away to make the impossible possible. Indeed after a lot of toiling, the garden he ended up growing turned out to be second only to the garden at the Maihar Palace. But it was such hard work! Oh lord! He would not even think of hiring a gardener or helper. There was a Kol (an indigenous tribe) servant from the nearby area, who was called Kallu. Kallu’s main job was to draw water from the well, one bucket at a time, and supply it to the house and the garden. Every day, for four–five hours, Baba would wrestle with the garden. If enough water was not poured, Kallu would of course be scolded but for good measure, Baba would scold the trees and the soil as well. All sweaty from the hard day’s labour, with dirt all over his body, he used to cut a war-like figure. On top of that, in his hand he held either a chopper, sickle, spade or something of that sort. Looking like that, he would scare us to death. We would give him a wide berth when he was like that.

In this context, I am reminded of his legendary temper. On this subject, I had written in my English book that he was at once a Vaishnav and Shakta. What I said actually does apply very well to him. There was nothing artificial or manufactured at all about either of his two states. Those who have seen him know exactly how humble he was. You would hear him say only one thing all the time: ‘I’m unmelodious, ataai (without formal training and gharana). I never even managed to hold a perfect Sa in my whole life. I am a mlechha (an outcast), a descendant of dacoits. I turn into a chandal (an untouchable; in this context, violent) when I am angry.’ He would always say things like that. Baba was never in the habit of trying to show off. In fact, hearing him talk like that, I used to sometimes get mad about his belittling himself in front of anyone and everyone.

His way of looking after guests was also impeccable. He wholeheartedly believed in and followed the tradition of serving guests as Narayana, the Hindu God. Starting from working out where they would sleep to what they would eat, he would welcome them with such gusto that many guests, feeling overwhelmed, would become anxious to escape.

On the other hand, there was his unimaginable anger. But even his anger had two sides. His anger towards his disciples, while teaching them, was the scariest. The other kind of anger was expressed in his childlike tantrums that he seemed to throw for no reason. These only made everyone laugh. Let me give you some examples. A blind boy named Surdas used to play the tabla in the Maihar band that he founded. One day, he was not, for the life of him, being able to pick up a tukra (short, simple composition) that Baba was trying to teach him. Seeing Surdas struggle, Baba’s anger was reaching a crescendo. This was the most dangerous time to be around him. He would start hitting his students with whatever he could get his hands on. That day, he ended up beating Surdas so hard with the hammer used for tuning the tabla that he had to be hospitalised for six months. But then, somehow, his heart melted. Every day, he would go to the hospital to visit Surdas with milk, fruits, etc.

(Excerpted with permission from Ustad Allauddin Khan’s ‘My Life: Story of an Imperfect Musician’; published by Niyogi Books)