The father would tell family stories of comniitted riyaz - of how grandfather Imdad Khan did not get up till he finished his practice of paltas even when he heard his daughter had died. Nikhil Banerji and Rais Khan came for classes. Purvi Mukherji and Shubhra Guha are his students of vocal music. We are on the terrace now, with low clouds flitting through the lissom trees around us. The ustad breaks into raag Gaarii on request.
Melody flows like liquid gold.
And you wonder. Don't his audience long for those snatches of song in his concerts, not quite being able to tell when voice ends and strings begin ' When he replies, the tone is tremulous with a grief of long ago. I could do things with my voice that could never be done on the sitar. That's when my mother stabbed me to the core. She said I must give up singing.