Nishat Khan

Sitar player Nishat Khan, son of Ustad Imrat Khan and nephew of late Ustad Vilayat Khan, showed he was very much on the path of developing into a significant musician at a recital organised by Sangeet Ashram at G.D. Birla Sabhagar last Friday. Nishat has been very strong technically right from his boyhood. But now, this strength has taken on the polish of more disciplined musicianship.

His recital started with alap, jod, jhala and vilambit teental gatkari in the raga Puria. The 21-minute vilambit alap built up the raga with a systematic use of the meends and other deflected phrases developed by his uncle and father through structured development of three or four-note segments of the raga.

Nishat would first introduce the segments one by one and then combine them into more complicated melodic structures as he moved ahead. His technical prowess grew more and more impressive as the alap moved to the tar saptak and afterwards to the jod. Infusing melodic veneer to the jhala through meends and ghasits, he tugged the main string so hard at one point that it broke. When he resumed, it was no longer jhala but deflected taans, gamaks and ekhara taans in the best Vilayat-Imrat Khan tradition that were heard.

The vilambit teental gatkari, with expert support and jawabs from tabla player Anindo Chatterjee was equally impressive. Nishat played bol vistar, peshkar-ang rhythms and the ekhara and deflected taankari as well as his uncle and father did in their heydays.

The final session, comprising drut teental gatkari in Kamod, Hammir and Nand, was also fine. The Nand-like phrase dha pa re sa in the Kamod composition, however, sounded totally out of place.