Inheritor of a grand tradition

While on his annual two-week long visit to Pakistan from Germany, Ustad Ashraf Sharif Khan was invited to a number of concerts in Lahore.

Born in Lahore, Khan grew up in the city learning to play the sitar in an environment that was both heart-warming and heartbreaking. Heart-warming because many people wanted him to continue playing the sitar -- as if to assert the continuity of a family tradition -- and through that to emphasise that the lines in the musical sense did not snap, and that life still flowed through them in the shape of the son taking up the profession of the father. It was heartbreaking because he grew up in an environment where despite the good wishes of those mentioned above, there was no guarantee of economic and social security, especially in the years that the artiste grew up struggling with the difficult task of having to acquire the craft.

And it was quite an uphill struggle despite the injections of some help from the closest of quarters.

This took Ashraf Sharif Khan to the cusp of taking a critical decision -- staying back in the country or leaving it for a place with a modicum of economic security. He chose the latter option, and moved to Germany about 17 years ago. He visits his country whose passport he still holds once a year on average.

On this visit, he became very emotional when a film was screened in the home of a friend, who had invited him to perform.The film was probably made by PTV on Ustad Sharif Khan in which a very young Tony, as he is affectionately called, was also sitting holding a small sized sitar.

But since then he has covered a fair distance and has been playing in Germany and touring other countries with the group that he formed over the years. In the beginning one wondered what he was doing after leaving his country, but, then, through the internet and the annual visits, it become known more clearly. He has also performed in Pakistan, under the title of "Berlin to Lahore", a number of concerts held in the past few years in at least three cities of Pakistan.

But, this time round, he came alone and performed at a number of concerts organised by the Lahore Music Forum, the All Pakistan Music Conference and at the National College of Arts, besides a number of private concerts.

There may be some marked differences in his playing since he left the country. He does not explore the lower register as much as he did earlier or as his father did. The exploration of the lower register was the hallmark of the playing of Ustad Sharif Khan and probably he was inspired by the similar explorations in the veena. Ashraf Sharif Khan does this but not that often and is more inclined towards the gaiki ang which was popularised by Ustad Vilayat Khan and immensely liked by those not that much into the playing of the sitar.

In this visit, Ashraf Sharif Khan played only the most popular and familiar raags like darbari, yaman, jaijaiwanti, peelu and bahiraveen to name some and did not venture forth into playing unfamiliar or achoob raags as he has done in some of his previous visits.

He is the inheritor of a grand tradition of Ustad Sharif Khan (born in Hissar which is now in Haryana) who was a musician at the court of the Maharaja of Poonch. He followed the path treaded by his father Ustad Rahim Buksh 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 Khan was from a family of vocalists but had switched to the string instruments and had become an outstanding instrumentalist under the tutelage of Ustad Imdad Khan, the grandfather of Ustad Vilayat Khan. Ustad Sharif Khan himself became the shagird of Ustad Inayat Khan-- the son of Imdad Khan and hence the father of Ustad Vilayat Khan.

Ustad Sharif Khan spent long hours mastering the very difficult art of playing the veena. Nobody in his family was 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 graces -- in particular the meends -- so characteristic of the veena, found their way when he took to playing the sitar seriously. These meends on the sitar expanded the musical possibilities inherent in the instruments. It can be said without fear of contradiction that no other sitar player has been able to achieve it.

Ustad Ashraf Sharif Khan has promised that on his next trip he will also bring with him some of the musicians that he plays with regularly. One of them is Naseer Shamama, a great ud player from Iraq, who now lives in the West and plays all over the world. He is a great musician -- a superstar, especially in the Arab world and is treated like a god both by those in power as well as the ordinary person in that society. If the demands of his fee and protocol that he expects are met with then he will be able to give a display of what really Arab music is like.

We in Pakistan know so little about contemporary Arab culture and Arab music -- the well-rounded view of society that saddles many a country but not known to us or shielded from us on purpose. The Pakistanis who live in the Arab world are too busy working and saving up for their families back home that they rarely participate in the high-end cultural activity of places like Dubai. The more active centres of Arab culture are in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Tunisia and Morocco -- a few Pakistanis go there or are inclined towards exploring the broader aspects of that society.