Could you elaborate on your musical journey since your
childhood and your initial days when you started out? of power and has to believe that everyone else also is a
centre of power.
My musical journey began when I was very young at the
age of ten. Our family belongs to Ahemdabad. Essentially,
our family is into business, my father was into textiles.
My mother was a painter and father was a businessman.
Hence, one stream came from my mother and other from
father. You cannot become a musician in one life. You
carry a lot of musical baggage from the previous life/lives
and I suppose I carried that. Right from childhood, I was
inclined towards music. On the other hand, Bhakti Margi believes that he is a
nobody and is playing for the almighty. I was taught
to always play for the almighty and to think that he is
playing through me. So, my approach was different from
Khan Saab but his father’s and my approach coincided.
He allowed me the freedom to develop my own approach.
I started Dilruba, a bowing instrument taught by one
Shri Gopal Rao Joshi who was the Principal of Gandharva
Maha Vidyalaya. My sister used to play Sitar and when
she left it, I started on the instrument when I was about
twelve years old.
I registered myself in a unique school, where they were
making poor children ready for life. They taught various
forms of art there like music, painting, cane work,
carpentry, farming, engineering and so on. We could
select what we liked and I learnt music from there too.
My biggest guru was Radio. I used to listen to great sitar
masters from all over the country.
On the radio, I ultimately heard Vilayat Khan