opefully as the coronavirus is behind us, the various experiments that were conducted either out of pressure or for wanting to tap other avenues of expression in a pent-up world can be viewed with dispassion and capitalised upon as an answer to the cumbersome nature of accessing music, especially the archival type or the physical effort required in reaching out to it. Last year, the barsi of the great Ustad Shareef Khan was held online, streamed in a sense, and those who appeared on the digital formats expressed their views on his greatness. At the same time, music was also played from the archives to bring forth the palpability of the imminence of music as a lived experience. Ashraf Shareef Khan, his son, who took the challenge and pursuit on the path of his father found it to be an uphill task; and many years ago, he went to Europe in search of greener pastures. There he experimented with more contemporary sound arrangements while keeping the traditional sitar playing of his family in concerts for those who demanded and appreciated them. He visits Pakistan regularly to give a display of what he has been doing.

For Ustad Shareef Khan, the going was tough in Pakistan. He had established himself as a sitar player before Partition but the lukewarm response and lack of appreciation of classical music made him look for other avenues to make both ends meet. Film was one platform and he was initially associated with Pandit Amarnath. After Partition, he found creative affinity with Khurshid Anwar for whom he played the sitar and veena in his numerous film compositions and background scores.

One is not talking of the making of music which has been integrally changed by the ingress of the digital format. The coming together of musical sounds and then its synchronisation and the post production adding, is all there and irreversible. The amalgamation of sounds, not all natural, has also increased the sonic storehouse which may appear to be unmusical now, but appear to be musical in the future. The process is ongoing and unstoppable and opens up new vistas which have the capacity to us astound all the time.

In the very recent past, books – and indeed music – the rare recordings, seemed to be the most important possession in private collections. Many of these private collectors develop a mean streak and sit on their possessions rather than sharing it with others. It was often the case that people with cash to spare travelled to Europe or America and came back with a recording and then flaunted it in every party and meeting without ever expressing their intention to also play and share it with those probably with keener interest and better taste. Many also had access to sources in India and got rare recordings from private concerts and then talked about it endlessly without ever offering their musical coffers to others. It was more a social one-upmanship than a desire to serve the cause of music.

The internet in a way is a treasure trove and much that one had only heard about is found out there in space or the cloud. One only has to develop the patience and knack of finding it. It has liberated us from the meanness of the collectors who just taunted their acquisitions and kept the others feeling totally inadequate. There is so much music on the internet and it is a challenge to get to know how much there is as one is surprised pleasantly by numbers unknown to us or many more numbers that one was not even aware of. It is thus, not only about finding the number or the artistes but to discover much else as well. It requires resilience and a certain familiarity with the online commands and directions which initially may appear and sound very alien and linguistically problematic.

Ustad Shareef Khan was born in Hissar which is now in Haryana in a family of musicians probably in the third decade of the twentieth century. Some of the famous ustads of the past like Qutab Khan, Badal Khan and Qaim Hussain Khan too belonged to the same family. After dabbling with the tabla and harmonium he became a musician at the court of the maharaja of Poonch. He followed the path treaded by his father, Ustad Rahim Bukhsh Khan, who, too, was associated with the state of Poonch, and according to some was the ustad of the maharaja himself.

A virtuoso himself, Ustad Rahim Bukhsh Khan was from a family of vocalists but had switched to the string instruments and become an outstanding instrumentalist under the tutelage of Ustad Imdad Khan, the grandfather of Ustad Vilayat Khan. Ustad Sharif Khan himself became a shagird of Ustad Inayat Khan, the son of Imdad Khan and the father of Ustad Vilayat Khan.

Ustad Shareef Khan spent long hours mastering the very difficult art of playing the veena. Nobody in his family had been a veena player but when he was taunted by the nephew of Ustad Abdul Aziz Beenkar that it was almost impossible to play the vichitra veena he took it up as a challenge. The balance of both the hands and the technique to be applied had immense differences in the art of playing the two instruments but he switched from the one to the other with seeming ease. The graces in particular the meendhs so characteristics of the veena found their way when he took to playing the sitar seriously. These meendhs on the sitar expanded the musical possibilities inherent in the instrument. It can be said without fear of contradiction that no other sitar player has been able to achieve it.

The author is a culture critic based in Lahore