A discerning sentence in the initial pages goes thus: “I believe in being traditional, not conventional”. Amjad Ali Khan then goes on to explain the difference in the long introductory note, and tacitly reiterates it in the subsequent chapters on a dozen exponents of Indian classical music in the 20th century.
While referring to Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, the author notes that the Patiala gharana vocalist believed the audience would not appreciate overly long compositions. Much later, in the penultimate chapter—on Kumar Gandharva—Amjad Ali counters a popular notion that the prodigy-turned-icon was a non-conformist. Modernising without losing the superstructure is, to the sarod maestro, defying convention, while upholding tradition. He cites an early 1980s incident as an instance. When Amjad Ali recorded an album of short pieces, he was flayed for the ‘capsules’. To him, the challenge was to distil the essence of a raga in a short time, as “after maybe an hour it was all repetition”. That’s...
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