Sarod maestro Ustad Ali Akbar Khan was the original ‘sultan of strings’. Violinist Yehudi Menuhin called him the greatest musician on the planet. The Indian government declared him a national treasure. He shared a stage with his brother-in-law Ravi Shankar and performed with Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton at Madison Square Garden.
For decades, Khan’s music captured the imagination of the Indian subcontinent and the West. But his genius was more than just inherited talent. His father, Allauddin Khan, one of the foremost figures of Indian classical music, shaped him. They trained for 18 hours a day. Days would begin at 3 am. Beatings were common.
By the time he was in his 20s, the young Khan was performing across India—a concert a day if not more. But in an interview with The New York Times, he recalled that at the time, he didn’t love the music. He considered it work.
It was only at the age of 50 that he found his love for the notes he played. When he “grasped the full range of human emotions contained in each note of a raga, from playfulness to pathos to piety,” according to the interview.
“Then, I actually understood what my father meant,” Khan had said.
By then, Khan had cemented his legacy, dazzling global audiences, forging East-West musical bridges, and being nominated for multiple Grammy awards. In 1989, India named him a National Treasure. In 1997, the US awarded him the National Heritage Fellowship, its highest honour for traditional arts.
However, it was when his father told him, “I am so pleased with your work in music that I will do something very rare. As your guru and father, I give you a title: Swara Samrat—Emperor of Melody”, that life came full circle for Khan.
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The rebellious teen, the musical maestro
Born in 1922 in Shibpur, Comilla (now in Bangladesh), Khan came from a royal lineage. His family traced their gharana (musical tradition) to Mian Tansen, the legendary 16th-century musician in Emperor Akbar’s court.
His father, Baba Allauddin Khan, was said to have mastered over 200 instruments. At age 13, Khan gave his first public performance in Allahabad. By his twenties, he had become the music director at All India Radio in Lucknow and was composing orchestral works.
In 1945, he recorded the three-minute raga Chandranandan (Moonstruck), blending four evening ragas into a melody that became a national sensation and his signature tune.
But behind the serious exterior was once a rebellious teen. Recalling an encounter in Maihar where they both stayed, Ravi Shankar wrote in his 1997 autobiography Raga Mala: “He was docile in front of Baba, even scared. So you can imagine my astonishment when one day he fished a packet of Gold Flake cigarettes out of his pocket and offered me one. Only thirteen years old! It stunned me!”
The rebellion was not a one-time stunt. After stints at All India Radio and the Jodhpur court—where he was bestowed with the title Ustad—Khan entered cinema. His father initially disowned him for composing film music, but he went on to score for classics like Satyajit Ray’s Devi (1960), Tapan Sinha’s Kshudhita Pashan (1960), and Merchant-Ivory’s The Householder (1963). He also collaborated with Lata Mangeshkar on Aandhiyan (1952); she sang without charging a fee, as a mark of respect for him.
Ironically, it was Kshudhita Pashan that brought father and son together again. After watching the film, Allauddin Khan exclaimed, “My goodness, who composed the music? He is great.” On learning that it was his son, he sent a telegram, offering his forgiveness.
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The introvert who brought Indian music to the West
In 1955, on the invitation of famed violinist Yehudi Menuhin, Khan travelled to the US. Once there, he performed at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and recorded the first Western LP of Indian classical music, ‘Music of India: Morning and Evening Ragas’. In an appearance on British-American radio host Alistair Cooke’s show Omnibus, he introduced the sarod to American television for the first time.
“When I came in ’55, because I was in Indian dress, people on the street in New York came out of bars and shops and followed us,” he said in a 1997 interview to The New York Times.
“They asked me, ‘Who are you? Where are you from?’ When I said ‘India,’ some didn’t even know where it was. Others asked funny questions like, ‘How can you play music in India with all the tigers and snakes and monkeys you have to fight off?’”
A man of few words, introverted, and never given to extravagant flourishes, he was completely absorbed in the music of the classical tradition.
“When he played, he appeared to be oblivious of everything around him. He said that it was through his music that he communicated with the Almighty, ” The Guardian wrote.
It was this man that Menuhin would later call “an absolute genius, the greatest musician in the world.”
Khan’s global fame surged again in 1971 at the Concert for Bangladesh with Ravi Shankar, George Harrison, and Bob Dylan.
“The concert raised millions for Bangladesh and put the country on the global map,” Shankar recalled in his autobiography.
But Khan viewed it differently: “That was not music, it was a war of music.” The star-studded lineup included Beatles’ George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, and Khan’s brother-in-law Ravi Shankar. Rock music played out in Madison Square Garden.
Overwhelmed by the volume, Khan stuffed toilet paper in his ears. “If I heard that music for a week, my ears would be finished,” he later said.
In 1967, Khan founded the Ali Akbar College of Music in Berkeley, later moving it to Marin County. While Ravi Shankar and Zakir Hussain drew large crowds and popularised Indian instruments in the West, it was Ali Akbar Khan, reverently called Khansahib, who taught thousands, shaping deep appreciation for Indian classical music, NYT wrote.
“He has certainly taught more Americans than any other artist,” Robert Browning of the World Music Institute once said. “More than anything, he built true knowledge of Indian music.”
Khan chose to settle in the US for its opportunities. “India gave me all the awards,” he said, “but awards don’t fund a college.”
There, he taught students from across the globe. He died on 18 June 2009 due to kidney failure, but he continued teaching till the day before. Once, when scolding a class for playing out of tune, a student asked cheekily, “Do you play in tune?” Khan laughed and said, “I am still trying.”
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)