Ready access to recorded music spanning five generations of renowned artistes in the family, the walls of her living room packed with portraits of Indian and international musical greats, and a childhood immersed in not just her father and legendary sitar player Ustad Vilayat Khan's music, but also that of icons like Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, Ella Fitzgerald, Joan Baez and Aretha Franklin; when Zila Khan says "badi shaukeen tabeeyat se bade hue hain", she means it.

Khan in a scene from Gauhar with Rajeshwari Sachdev