Maestro’s eternal Banaras connect

On August 21, 2006, the world of music fell silent as the man who had made magic with the shehnai, Bismillah Khan, passed away in Banaras. He was 90 years old.

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Born Qamaruddin Khan on March 21, 1916, into a family of traditional musicians in Dumraon, near Buxar in Bihar — his father, Paigambar Bux Khan, was a court musician employed at the court of Maharaj Keshav Prasad Singh, while his mother, Mithanbai, brought up the family — the story goes that when his grandfather, Rasool Baksh Khan, saw the newborn child’s face, he said, “Bismillah!” The moniker stuck.

The young Bismillah grew up in Banaras next door and was soon sent to learn to play the shehnai, a reeded woodwind instrument, from his guru Ali Baksh, who was a musician at the Kashi Vishwanath temple. Over the next several decades, Bismillah would be found playing the instrument on the banks of the river, amid temples and mosques, the music of the river melding with the music in his veins.

He was particularly happy performing at the Kashi Vishwanath temple, in the shadow of the Gyanvapi mosque. The London Telegraph wrote in his obituary that when Bismillah was 12, and was praying at a temple to Balaji, an avatar of Lord Vishnu in Banaras, he “received a signal” from the temple deity, who said, “Play, son.”

Bismillah Khan would take this creative call to heart and play for thousands of people over the decades that followed, from prime ministers to commoners to kinds. But he always stayed close to his roots. Banaras meant everything to him, and he to the city.