A day before his performance at the Nehru Centre, legendary musician and sitar maestro Ustad Rais Khan opens up about music, his chocolate fixation as a kid, and living in Pakistan, in a freewheeling chat with Surekha S

We begin with a confession. We haven't laughed this much in an interview, especially when it involves a legendary musician.


Ustad Rais Khan

The two hours that we spent with sitar maestro Ustad Rais Khan at his Mumbai Central residence was informal, spontaneous and so much fun.

Legend Call
The 72-year-old sitarist still exhibits the same passion and devotion for music as he did in his youth. We also got a glimpse of his charming persona and fun-loving attitude through the many jokes and stories that came our way as he recounted incidents from his past.

The Ustad learnt the sitar from his father Ustad Mohammed Khan since he was two and a half, when his father first presented him with a coconut shell sitar.

He gave his first performance when he was barely five. "It was at Sunderbai Hall and I performed in the presence of the then governor of Bombay, Sri Maharaja Singh," he reminisces. Since then he has been giving regular performances across the country.
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"As I grew up I came to be known as the chocolate musician," he says as he breaks into a laugh. Apparently, if someone wanted to make him play faster and defeat the tabla player, all they had to do was offer him a chocolate. "I was at a performance, when after a while my hands started paining and I wanted to slow down.
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My mother, who was seated on the first row, asked me to speed up and I gave her a reluctant look. Slowly, she slowly took out a chocolate from her purse and showed it to me. My speed increased. As the number of chocolates increased so did my speed, till finally, the tabla player gave up," he recalls with a glint of mischief in his eyes.

Barely a pre-teen, he came to be known not just as an excellent sitarist but also as a great singer. He was conferred the title of Ustad at the age of 11. "In those days, musicians from all India would assemble at a place to hear a performer. They would then collectively decide to give him the title. These days, there are many musicians who take on the title by themselves," he says.