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Zila Khan
Zila can never remember a time when she was not in the arms of music. Born in Calcutta, where her ancestors Ustad Emdad Khan, Ustad Inayat Khan, Ustad Vilayat Khan, have not only been landmarks of instruments called Sitar and Surbahar but have carried with them the richly ingrained and great tradition of Indian vocal classical music, which not only persists in its most accepted form internationally but promises to continue into the future. Zila, perhaps being more vocally inclined than the ancestors or siblings, is now for the first time being available for listening, to that great tradition of the feminine sensibilities that has made the household, a shrine. Here she brings in memories, understanding, reflections and obviously a grip and command over the medium, which she could not have avoided.Being multi-layered and multi-dimensional came to her as household utensils, yet the enormous possibilities of those 12 notes always kept her in a state of amazement and hence in her tonal quality, at once, an assurance that sits like a silk hat accompanied simultaneously with a sense of wonder. In short, perhaps a gift, which she couldn’t avail of because of constraints that prevailed in the formative years of her life – which incidentally formed the most creative phase of the recorded Indian Classical Music of the 20th century, this on one hand handicapped her. Born in the banyan trees like Ustad Inayat Khan, Ustad Imdad Khan, Ustad Vilayat Khan, Waheed Khan alongside the proven tradition of the vocal music, Ustad Bande Hussain Khan, her great-grand father and Ustad Amir Khan, who happened to be the husband of her aunt, which as the renderings will prove, has left an indelible mark in her style. Zila to my mind is the only one who can measure, without malice or rancor the ‘equidistance between the vocal and the instrument’ Opting for instrument would have been obvious for her. She has emerged from unsuspected depths and again I feel, irrespective of the quality of music, Zila is the only bridge, which can make someone as uninitiated as me to understand the gap between the vocal and the instrument. Her emergence at this juncture of confusion about propagation of the great tradition of Indian classical music augurs well for all of us. She brings along with her not only the conflicts, controversies and acceptance and yet also at such a young age, a kind of understanding that sets many confusion at rest.Hers is not a voice that shocks, but a voice of ‘understanding’. Her voice embodies the continuing spirit and tradition of Indian classical music and deserves mention, without which the scenario of Indian classical music is not quite complete.Her voice is characterized by its own identity and therefore needs no special introduction, despite being part of a great musical legacy. Such is the wondrous quality of her voice that, in the same breath, it keeps us in the present and yet again takes us to the magical past. This early gift of the millennium will certainly be not only a treasure but will also start a process, which will keep the hurried millennium, musically indisposed.She is not a ghazal singer. She is an interpreter of Urdu poetry. The tools she has chosen are more than 700 years old. She is scrutinizing and is the link between Indian Classical and Light Classical Music. Her selections and particularly her treatment of any genre though belated, will at once reflect that un-erasable tradition of sensibility, of which willing or unwittingly she is a part of.Needless to introduce her, the daughter of Ustad Vilayat Khan, who will be happy and proud to feel that this little girl of his is equally involved in Music.
(Late) Ain Rasheed Khan. D.G. & Commandant General.
zilakhan@rediffmail.com
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