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Sarod maestro Ustad Wajahat Khan Sahib’s recent performances in Dhaka may have been only limited to that at the house of a close friend, but the impact he and his group of fusionists made was unquestionable. The prominent Sandip Banerjee accompanied the sarod genius on the Tabla that night, and together they left a lasting impression on the audience who could only marvel at their finesse and skill. It was an evening of Indian Classical music blended in with improvised Jazz scales and vocal melodies, which the Ustad sang. Typical of classical pieces, the scales stretched long with intricate variations but the duo never failed to capture the audiences’ attention and respect. Frequent interactions made with the audience by the Ustad added to the warmth of the occasion and reflected on his charismatic nature. Ustad Wajahat Khan’s visit to Dhaka served the dual purpose of being part of a campaign tour for his own academy, called Wajahat Khan’s Academy of World Music, and satisfying his desire to perform in Dhaka, where he claims that audiences are fantastic. This time around he arrived with a team of musicians lead by Martin Keiting, Director of London Music College, which is in collaboration with Wajahat Khan’s Academy of World Music. Prior to his arrival in Dhaka, Wajahat Khan had held similar campaign programmes in Bombay and Calcutta. The renowned sarod player was born into a family of musical geniuses, a dynasty that has shaped and influenced the style of North Indian instrumental music and is chiefly responsible for the evolution of the sitar and the creation of the surbahar. His great grandfather, Ustad Imdad Khan, born in 1858, was the leading surbahar and sitar player of his time. His son, Ustad Enayet Khan, was the one who made it popular all over India. Wajahat Khan’s father, Ustad Imrat Khan, also bore the mark of a prodigy. It was under his father’s guidance that Wajahat Khan started on the sarod at the age of 12. Interestingly, the Ustad started his musical life learning vocal music and his earliest performances were as a vocal artist when he was around seven or eight years old. He belongs to the eighth generation of this eminent musical dynasty and he is the first member to play the sarod instead of the sitar or the surbahar. He made his European debut in 1977 and now is established as an international artiste, touring extensively, and dividing his time and activities mainly between Kolkata and London. He is a man on the run and a man in heavy demand, not just as a musician but also as a teacher. He has performed in various countries, in Europe, in the USA, Canada, the former USSR, Hong Kong, Japan, South East Asia and of course, in numerous places all over the sub-continent. A performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 1989 has been described as the greatest musical festival in the world. If all the man’s achievements, whether performances or media appearances, were to be listed it would be incredibly lengthy and somewhat inconvenient for the reader. Such is the man’s presence in his field. As well as being a musician, he is also a composer and his diversity is reflected in his compositions for Western instruments as well as Indian. His works include those for several television and feature films including ‘Majdhar’, which is an award winning Channel 4 film. When not travelling, Wajahat Khan likes to practice for about 12 to 14 hours every day. The long hours have become a habit, and such is the discipline that has produced the fluency in playing ability. Through years of dedication, he has stumbled upon his own style of playing the sarod, blending in melodic syllables with musical rhythms. His innovative adaptation to the sophisticated four string technique of the surbahar to the sarod has added a new dimension to the instrument. Although he does love his raagas, the Ustad’s musical interests also stray far from the quintessential Indian classical he is normally associated with. He is all up for ‘fusing’ different forms of music, but adheres to one point very fervently: ‘Successful fusion occurs only when the characteristics and the core values of the different backgrounds of music stay pure while fusing.’ He also likes to add, ‘the opposite of fusion is confusion and I think most fusion that is practiced now is confusion’. While managing to keep the respective musical forms ‘pure’, he toured Europe performing fusion concerts that blended Jazz and Flamenco with Indian Classical. In 1997, he created the Wajahat Khan Indian Chamber Orchestra with all traditional instruments of Indian Classical music, in commemoration of 50 years of Indian Independence, to premiere his ‘Garlaand of Tribute’ with a memorable performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. Unfortunately, the Ustad’s recent campaign in Dhaka did not go fully as planned. On the evening of August 30, a musical programme titled ‘East meets West’ was held at the British Council and it featured a fusion jam session between contemporary local fusion artistes along with the Ustad and the team from LMC. Even though the maestro himself was not able to attend due to illness, the programme proceeded as planned opening with the fusion group, which comprised the LMC team along Buno and Shantonu (from Bangla), Meiraj Husain and other musicians on the tabla and flute. ‘I could not get much practice done in the last few days because I was sick’, Wajahat Khan said at his only performance, ‘so I spent all of last night practicing for this one. It was not all according to plan, but I wanted tonight to be something really special for those who had come to watch me.’ The group performed four numbers, starting with a theme-based piece titled Desert Night and ending with a song written by Martin Keiting. During this performance the flutist of the fusion group presented the British team with a Nepali flute as a tribute to their efforts. Wajahat Khan’s latest CD has just been released by Koch Classics and has been receiving great reviews in Europe. It is a unique collaboration of Indian and Western classical music in the form of a Quintet for sarod and a string Quartet. It is a reflection of the interest that the Ustad has in embracing other forms of music and blending them to create something that is entirely unique. He is currently playing with the Medici String Quartet, universally acclaimed as one of the world’s greatest quartets. Ustad Wajahat Khan may be looked upon as an ambassador for change amongst the traditional norms in traditional music today. But is fusion music the next big thing, as our cultural borders become more permeable with the passing time? Perhaps it is inevitable; perhaps it is necessary to bring races and cultures together using music as the tool; for it is like creating a new being, a new song that reveals many different tones yet remains as one. One of the youngest internationally renowned Indian musicians, Wajahat Khan has already acquired a faithful and enthusiastic following. Look out for him in the future and be thrilled and surprised at the art of fusion.

Dipping into Dibyagyaan
   Shahaj manush,
   Bhojey dekh na re mon, dibbyogayney…
   As Lalon’s lullaby on the human spirit rendered by Anusheh’s soulful alto drifts into the evening air from a shining red sports car’s state-of-the-art Pioneer speakers, you can be forgiven if the thought crossed your mind: do they know what it means? The new folk-fusion revival draws its inspiration from multi-various influences. Today’s Ujan, Bangla, Habib and Ajob all have roots in the long tradition of folk practice in Bangla music. Right through the Seventies, when the four Khalifas of Bangla rock-pop – Azam Khan, Firoz Shai, Ferdous Wahid and Fakir Alamgir – were transforming Bangla music forever, they all drew elements from our rich folk heritage. Be it the rural yearning in Fakir Alamgir’s quintessentially urban Shakhina, or the spiritual in Sopondon’s Iskool khuila che re moula, pop has always stolen liberally from the folk singer’s custom.
   
   And back to you, Lalon …
   The folk revival came into full force in the form of folk-fusion following the release of Bangla’s Kingkortobobimur (or simply, ‘Awestruck’) in 2002. Out of the few groups working with lyrical fusion, Bangla practices and performs both traditional folk songs and also their own compositions. With the husky, soulful voice of Anusheh accompanied by the classical purity of Arnab’s esraj, Shantonu’s rhythmic beats, Buno and Kartik’s smooth guitar playing, Bangla struck an unexplored chord in Dhaka’s musical palette. Their songs were mostly by Lalon Shah, Durbin Shah, Amar Pal Baul and other folk legends. With the mysticism of life, the clemency of the supreme entity and common themes of love, death and hate as the underlying backdrop of the songs, Bangla created a fusion of western and eastern instruments and elements. The result was something completely new out of something old.
   Anusheh of Bangla points out that this is not exactly a resurgence of any sort, rather another logical step in the unfolding world music scene. Like the 70’s was about following the Beatles, the eighties about Metallica, the 90’s about Nirvana, the new age of globalisation is about taking your local music onto the world stage. ‘Look at what Indians, especially those living abroad, have done. They have taken their traditional music and transformed it into the modern sound structure. You go to any club in London, Indian music is the rage. Whereas there are some Indian musicians who are trying to play western music directly and they have not gotten anywhere,’ comments Anusheh. ‘Also, with internet and satellite television, we are exposed to such quality music that for our industry to survive, we need to find new ways to present our music,’ she adds.
   
   The Second Coming
   Bangla takes its roots from Ujan, a group playing similar kind of music under the leadership of Harold Rashid, a musician passionate about folk and its revival. Buno, who is presently Bangla’s bassist, started playing music with this group in 1997. He was deeply influenced by the lyrical and musical depth of Bangla folk music. In early 1998, Buno met Anusheh at a tea garden in Sylhet. And after some discussion, they expressed a mutual intention to create folk fusion. After a few months, back in Dhaka, Buno met up with Anusheh and her friend Arnab. In unison they all decided to perform music that was different from what was currently out there. They started brainstorming, and on the spur of the moment they recorded three songs. Even with the conviction that they should record a full-length album, the record companies they approached gave them a cold reception. The labels wanted strip them of their freedom to create music that was ‘offtrack’. But their faith in their cause kept them from giving in.
   
   Old Music in New Forms
   The concept of a folk revival is not new, having been attempted by every generation of music makers. A decade earlier Maqsood of Feedback fame had played a pivotal role in reviving folk through his band’s Bauliana album. He started this journey to Bauliana in 1989 when his friend Shomnath Chaterjee from India made an offer to explore the Baul songs of Bengal. ‘I will be frank. When I started out in music, it was more the physical, i.e. dance, that drew my attention. But as I have been delving deeper, I am discovering the “cerebral” side of music,’ says Maqsood.
   
   On the banks of Kajla Nadi
   Harold Rashid has practiced the Sylheti-folk initiative for nearly two decades now. His band Ujan, founded in 1986, has been diligently scouring Sylhet’s villages and townships for unique folk tunes and lyrics. Having practiced music while being schooled in the UK, Harold returned to his father’s homeland in 1981. With a fully Westernized mindset in music, Harold met Bidit Lal Dash. With Bidit’s group Harold started venturing into what he refers to as his ‘destined track’ in music. Despite being a ‘when-I-had-the-time-and-I-could’ musician during the Nineties, since 2000 he has fully dedicated his time to the revival of Sylheti folk through Ujan. Their first album is expected soon.
   
   Krishna’s reincarnation – Techno style
   Bangladeshi audiences have been simultaneously experiencing a completely different style of folk revival. Habib Wahid, son of the legendary Ferdous Wahid, shot into the mainstream music scene with his breakaway hit album Krishna. The School of Audio Engineering in London taught Habib the technical wizardry needed to take traditional Sylheti folk music, and ‘recreate’ them into chart-smashing club tracks.
   ‘I believe music is my form of expression. I have taken ingredients from my country’s rich oral tradition and transformed in into my own representation of music,’ says Habib. Though his first album was completely techno remixes, Habib’s second album has more pure folk elements and instrument usage. However, this only aided Maya in becoming another smash hit.
   
   The urban bohemian
   While folk revivals were being jumpstarted every generation, the mid-nineties saw a the coming of a new urban bohemian music style which drew heavily from the ‘jibondhormi gaan’ of Sumon Chatterjee, Anjan Datta and Nochiketa of Kolkata. These were second-generation educated urban disaffected youth playing acoustic guitars, melding bohemian lyrics with elements from every day life. They were our new urban bauls.
   
   Ektaar e Badha
   Faisal Siddiqui Bogey, the managing director of Ektaar Music, the recording label attributed with being at the forefront of the new folk revival trend, points out that ‘Amongst all the traditional forms of music we have in this country, folk music is the most easily adaptable to the western sound structure.’
   ‘Folk music by definition is good music, because it has survived the test of time. So the lyrics are bound to be eternal. We at Ektaar were looking to record good music, not necessarily folk music. Folk just fit bill. However, with the emergence of folk-fusion, the bar on good music has been raised. Now, songwriters are being forced to write songs that can compete with music that has in some cases survived a 1000 years,’ says Bogey
   
   Till the bubble bursts?
   Someone who has been academically involved in researching Bauls, and also a keen observer of the folk revival scene, is Saymon Zakaria, manuscript editor of Bangla Academy’s Folklore Department. He points out that the success of Bangla and Habib has to do with the way they have adapted folk music. ‘Bangla’s success depends on Anusheh’s stylish usage of her classical training in rendering these folk songs. You must understand that “bhab” passes into you genetically and then transforms itself through your present reality. That is the only way you can make it work,’ says Saymon.
   ‘What has happened is that we have returned to our Bengali melody base of singing more songs that are lyrically strong instead of sound-based music. We have this in our genes and every time you hear it you get goosebumps – this music belongs to us,’ declares Saymon. Bogey adds, ‘We have had a rich tradition that dates backs almost a thousand years. As opposed to that, the American music that we listen to dates back only a hundred years from the original blues sung by black musicians. This is far more time-tested music.’
   
   Spread the love
   On the issue of whether these fusion renditions are destroying the true essence of folk music, Saymon has something very interesting to say. ‘In my extensive visits, I have found that the Rajbangshis in Mulgram village under Pabna’s Chatmohar thana practice Lalon’s songs with their own musical arrangements. They use Lalon’s lyrics, but feel that new compositions reflect their sensibilities,’ says Saymon.
   It is true. If Lalon and the great Bauls of Bengal shared their music in the hope of illuminating the power of the human soul, then the current presentation of folk in our modern idiom is nothing more than an extension of this dibyogyan.
   This article was originally printed in the March 2005 issue of SLATE