Unlike the Ustad who had turned down offers from fans to settle in any part of the world (he had famously said, “Get my beloved Ganga here if you can”), Nayyar and his brother Nazim (a table player) had to cultivate their contacts independently, for the Ustad never pushed his sons centre stage, a grouse his wife Muggan Bai always held against him. Nayyar, schooled at home for a bit, was hampered by an inability to negotiate deals for himself.
Nazim’s task was a little easier given that he had chosen a different instrument and so was in no competition with his father and did not have to bear the beatings that Nayyar was subjected to during the rigours of his daily eight-hour riyaz which he was put through since the age of seven. The Ustad himself practiced 16 hours every day.
Of Nayyar’s eight children, Nazim Abbas was the only one to train under his grandfather and father. The rest, as another son, Asad Abbas (25) says, “were too petrified of the Ustad’s temper”. However Asad, after dabbling in sports at school and in a business that sunk the family’s money, has now turned to the shehnai even though he admits, “I had no special interest in the instrument. But now I guess the family’s tradition has to be upheld. People will come to listen to me, in the name of my Baba.” Yet, Asad’s practice hours are erratic and the best he notches up is four hours a day.
There are other claimants to the Ustad’s legacy. One among them is the Mumbai-based Soma Ghosh, a classical singer of the Benares Gharana who the Ustad fondly referred to as his daughter (See interview). Abbas Murtaza Shamsi, the 48-year-old who was secretary to the Ustad and then to Nayyar says, “She cashed in on the Ustad’s name never failing to mention that the Ustad was her Baba.”
Yet Ghosh, faithful to the memory of the man who she considered her guru, has been organising concerts in the Ustad’s memory (the last one called Yaad-e-Bismillah like the others was held in August, 2009). Similarly, the Mumbai-based Sangeet Natak Akademi has been handing out the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar since 2006 to artists performing diverse arts. However, the UP government’s promise of setting up an academy in the Ustad’s name, never materialised. Neither did the petrol pump that the Ustad had demanded his family be given. Shamsi says, “Nayyar left too soon. He had the next 10 years planned and would have carried forth the Ustad’s legacy. Now it is a difficult, though not impossible, task. I am trying to revive as many old contacts as possible.” Godspeed the efforts, but when you take the 28 steps that bring you to what was once the Ustad’s room and notice the cobwebs and the carelessly lumped pictures of the Ustad gathering dust in a side alley, you realise the legacy is as dead as the man himself.
Nazim’s task was a little easier given that he had chosen a different instrument and so was in no competition with his father and did not have to bear the beatings that Nayyar was subjected to during the rigours of his daily eight-hour riyaz which he was put through since the age of seven. The Ustad himself practiced 16 hours every day.
Of Nayyar’s eight children, Nazim Abbas was the only one to train under his grandfather and father. The rest, as another son, Asad Abbas (25) says, “were too petrified of the Ustad’s temper”. However Asad, after dabbling in sports at school and in a business that sunk the family’s money, has now turned to the shehnai even though he admits, “I had no special interest in the instrument. But now I guess the family’s tradition has to be upheld. People will come to listen to me, in the name of my Baba.” Yet, Asad’s practice hours are erratic and the best he notches up is four hours a day.
There are other claimants to the Ustad’s legacy. One among them is the Mumbai-based Soma Ghosh, a classical singer of the Benares Gharana who the Ustad fondly referred to as his daughter (See interview). Abbas Murtaza Shamsi, the 48-year-old who was secretary to the Ustad and then to Nayyar says, “She cashed in on the Ustad’s name never failing to mention that the Ustad was her Baba.”
Yet Ghosh, faithful to the memory of the man who she considered her guru, has been organising concerts in the Ustad’s memory (the last one called Yaad-e-Bismillah like the others was held in August, 2009). Similarly, the Mumbai-based Sangeet Natak Akademi has been handing out the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar since 2006 to artists performing diverse arts. However, the UP government’s promise of setting up an academy in the Ustad’s name, never materialised. Neither did the petrol pump that the Ustad had demanded his family be given. Shamsi says, “Nayyar left too soon. He had the next 10 years planned and would have carried forth the Ustad’s legacy. Now it is a difficult, though not impossible, task. I am trying to revive as many old contacts as possible.” Godspeed the efforts, but when you take the 28 steps that bring you to what was once the Ustad’s room and notice the cobwebs and the carelessly lumped pictures of the Ustad gathering dust in a side alley, you realise the legacy is as dead as the man himself.
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