Remembering a Legend

did not allow any documentary on him while he was alive. The documentary titled Remembering the Legend will be screened in Delhi soon. It has some old recordings of Khan’s workshops and classes in the US and India apart from some rare pictures of Khan with his sister Annapurna Devi and guru bhai Pandit Ravi Shankar. The film also has interviews from the doyens of classical music like Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia,Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma,Asha Bhonsle and Pandit Nikhil Banerjee. “The only interview I have to add to the film is that of Pandit Ravi Shankar,considering the close association Baba had with him,” says Majumdar. Most of the footage in the documentary is unseen. “As students,we had access to quite a lot of rare recordings with us which is now in the public domain,” says Banarjee. The only voice is the film is that of Khan and his sarod. The duo was also helped by the West Bengal State Music Academy for some of their documented footage which was recorded when Khan was in Kolkata for a three-hour workshop. “We are not filmmakers. A few directors from the Bengali film industry helped us with the technical aspects of filmaking,” says Majumdar.

The documentary also gives a peek into Khan’s childhood which began under a strict father and guru Ustad Allauddin Khan. It trails him to Jodhpur where he became the court musician in the court of Jodhpur and follows him to Mumbai where he went on to work as a salaried musician with Navketan films. He founded the Ali Akbar College of Music in Kolkata in 1956 and later began teaching in California and Switzerland.