‘My Life: Story of an Imperfect Musician’ narrates the mesmerising tale of Ustad Allauddin Khan

‘The Story of an Imperfect Musician’ by Ustad Baba Allauddin Khan (1862-1972), the founder of Maihar gharana, is based on two talks that took place at Santiniketan in 1952. The book, originally written in Bengali by Shubhomay Ghosh and published in 1957, has now been translated into English by Hemasri Chaudhuri.

A quick read, the book comprises only 79 pages of text, with an additional 30 pages devoted to rare black and white photographs.

It is an invaluable compilation of the thoughts of a remarkable musician who, to this day, continues to influence the musicality of instrumentalists. Baba represented a world of music that no longer exists — a world where only the families of musicians were taught music, and where musicians flourished only in the courts of nobles or princes who supported them.

Baba’s struggle to acquire musical training as an outsider from Tripura, and his eventual success in finding a place in the world of performers, makes for fascinating reading.

Hemasri has included an introduction by Pt Ravi Shankar, written in 1981. Unsurprisingly, this too is now of historical interest, offering insight into the maestro’s mind regarding his guru — who was also his father-in-law. When the introduction was written, Baba had been gone for a decade, but Ravi Shankar was still married to Baba’s daughter, Annapurna Devi, though they had been estranged for decades.

Reverential and admiring of Baba’s humility and honesty about his origins, Ravi Shankar adds an anecdote that is not easy to come to terms with. A disciple was unable to correctly grasp a musical phrase that Baba was trying to teach. And Baba, in his “unimaginable anger”, threw a hammer at the boy’s head, leading to six-month hospitalisation.

Baba’s conversations — often rambling — have been transcribed word for word, making the book an unusual read. In his own words, having “descended from a line of dacoits”, Baba ran away from home to Calcutta, where he faced extreme poverty and struggled to learn music, working as a domestic servant for musicians. His intense ambition is evident when he seeks to train under the musician considered the greatest of his time, the legendary Senia Ustad Wazir Khan (somewhat inexplicably and confusingly referred to as ‘Ujir’ Khan throughout the book).

For someone who had to literally steal the music he learnt (in his words, “I come from a line of dacoits, after all. I stole money from my mother, of course I would steal knowledge”), this seemingly unachievable desire reflects his deep passion for music.

The book goes on to describe his later years, when he became the court musician of Maihar, a small state in Madhya Pradesh. Baba also travelled to Europe as part of Uday Shankar’s dance troupe in 1935, before the outbreak of the war — an account of immense interest, offering a glimpse of Europe as it was then, through the eyes of an unsophisticated, but highly aesthetic, Indian.

Baba’s advice to musicians remains strikingly relevant today: “Do not be desirous of winning the empty applause of the multitude, nor be touched by the titillations of a novelty-hungry audience.”

This book is a must-read for anyone interested in Indian classical music.

— The reviewer writes on music