Ustad Waseem AhmedKhan-my GuruJee, my mentor, my friend, my guide. I believe that I am the
luckiest and most fortunate person because he accepted to teach little old me
music from sa,re,ga,ma. My life has been greatly enriched by my association
with him.
It was sometime in July few years back when my GuruJee was in Purnea,
Bihar for his concert on the occasion of Late Rajkumar Shyamanand Singh's birth
anniversary,that was the first time I heard him live. I was completely mesmerized
by his singing though I didn't have much knowledge of sur, taal or ragas at
that time. To add to the beauty of gayaki was the wonderful tabla accompaniment
by the young maestro, Shri Sanjay Adhikari. My sincere thanks to my baba (Prof
Balanand Sinha)
who insisted him to accept me as his disciple. I am privileged that he accepted me as his disciple. I often encountered with the word "PERFECTION" in my life. I didn't quite understand what it means to be perfect. It was only after I met my guru jee that I began understanding what it means or say what it means to be perfect. Here I would like to share one of my experiences with my GuruJee. He was giving me a talim of Raag Bhairav. He asked me sing a phrase of Raag bhairav during the course of aalap. The phrase was komal re, ga, ma. I was unable to sing the phrase as he wanted me to. To my surprise he made me sing the phrase for an hour or more until it was perfect up to some extent.
My GuruJee comes from the great lineage of Agra Gharana.
He took his initial talim from his father Ustad Naseem Ahmed Khan and later by
Ustad Shafi Ahmed Khan at ITC SRA. He has the previlage of being the maternal
grandson of Ustad Ata Hussian Khan who is one of the all time great doyen of
this gharana. The agra gharana is characterized by the forceful and loud
projection of voice. Nom-tom aalap like dhrupad is a unique legacy of this
gharana. Laay kari plays a major part in the agra style singing.
All the characteristics of this gharana can be seen in the singing of my
GuruJee. And why shouldn't it be? He has got the Agra Gharana singing in his
genes, inherited from his father and fore fathers. In the modern era of fusion
and mixing, the word "puritan" can be used for my Guru Jee. He has
performed in all major music festivals in India like-Saptak, Sawai Gandhrva
Music Festival,Spic Macay International Convention etc, also he toured Germany, France Canada and Bangladesh for various music
festivals. Wherever he has performed, he took the audience by storm and has
kept them in awe stricken trance with his magical voice, vast knowledge and the
masterly handling of various known and rare raagas. Currently he is a faculty
at ITC SRA Kolkata. Yes, indeed
I am fortunate that I got a guru like Ustad Waseem Ahmed Khan.
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