HYDERABAD: Ustad Allaudin Khan, also fondly known as ‘Baba’, was the pioneer of the Senia-Maihar gharana school of music, a prolific multi-instrumentalist and guru to many of the great musicians who succeeded his time. The effervescent sarod player was not only well versed in playing the sarod but also almost every other string instrument, besides improving upon other classical instruments. His lineage includes his son Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Pt Ravi Shankar, his daughter Annapurna Devi, Pt Tmir Baran, Pt Pannalal Ghosh, Sharan Rani, Nikhil Banerjee, Ustad Bahadur Khan and many more.Pt Basant Kabra took to the stage to pay his homage to his guru, Gurumaa and in turn to her guru, Acharya Baba accompanied by tabla player Javed. A few minutes into the recital, and the audience could only sit and listen to the music that erupted from the deft moves of Pt Kabra’s fingers over the strings of the sarod. The musician who hails from the culturally rich Kabra family of Jodhpur, started his training under the aegis of his father Pt Damodarlal Kabra and later came under the tutelage of Annapurna Devi.The genius that is ‘Gurumaa’, as Annapurna Devi is known, and the family lineage of the Kabra family was transformed into the lilting notes that Pt Basant deftly produced. The music was soft yet turbulent, quintessentially classical, had the grace and poise of the sarod and the musical epiphany of the sarodiya. The audience was spell bound, the artist connecting with their emotions and evoking their mind to respond to the very soul of the music. Every now and then when the artist traversed the smooth plain of the instrument to create a tricky melody, the occasional smile spread across the room. But the maestro was perhaps playing for himself and his guru, as he seemed oblivious to everything, the music taking over his body and mind. The most note-worthy praise an artist can ever expect is when it comes from their peers. Pt Basant Kabra might not have been able to connect to each and everyone of the entire audience who graced the occasion, with perhaps finer nuances of the art being lost on the greater crowd. However, within the first quarter of his performance he had the first row of his audience, a smattering of Padma Bhushan awardees in various forms of classical music and also flautist Pt Nityanand Haldiapur, who was felicitated earlier in the evening, respond to the music with the age-old exclamation — “Wah-Wah”. And thus, it was as clear as the music that evening that the spirit of the Ustad certainly does live on.
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