( Ustad Abdul Halim Jaffer Khan 1927 – 2016 )
Ustad Halim Jaffer Khan was an innovator, who created an original style of playing the sitar, the eponymous ‘Jafferkhani Baaj’. Together with Ravi Shankar and Vilayat Khan, he made the sitar ubiquitous, taking it well beyond classical shores. From Hindi films to Beatles music, sitar sound became all pervasive, played even in Air India flights during take off and landing.
Halim Jaffer Khan blended many stylistic elements and choices to come up with a baaj, which reflected his thinking, playing skills and his musical personality.
Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma remembers the first time he heard Khansaheb. “I was sitting on the terrace of my house in Jammu when I heard on radio the notes of raga Chayanat on sitar. The tone and style of playing were radically unique...”
Jafferkhani Baaj evokes the image and feel of an intricately woven tapestry brimming with colours and textures. At its core is the creation of fractions within a matra or beat, and their embellishment with multiple notes produced through a variety of techniques — some new, some known but rarely used and some known and used. Chapka ang, ulti meend, zamzama, khatka, gada, murki, uchchat, ghaseet are deployed with dexterity and dazzle. The sounds are inherent in the sitar, he would say. But he could coax hitherto unheard tonal qualities from the instrument. It required needle-sharp playing skillsand a grip over rhythm. He extended the limits of the possible within the structure of the instrument. Technique and skill were not everything for him. The way in which they were deployed had to do with a raga’s personality and the composition’s rhythmic structure.
Halim Jaffer Khan’s father Jaffer Khan Saheb, a devout Muslim, was a singer and could play the sitar and veena. Young Halim would attend a variety of musical performances such as qawwali, ghazal and classical music with his father. He went on to become an accomplished performer, reflective practitioner and teacher; his home became a landmark in Mumbai’s Bandra.
He was a thinking musician but put across his views with the simplicity of a performer, not theoretician. His engagement with musical, literary and bhakti-sufi traditions imbued his repertoire with a rare richness. He had inherited a feel for Persian poetry from his father. The idiom of Hinduism would come easily, into his conversation. His book on ‘Jafferkhani Baaj’ is dedicated to Ramana Maharishi.
His contributions, apart from the Baaj itself, have opened up the sitar to new influences. He revived lost ragas , and is credited with inventing new ones such as Chakradhun and Madhyami. He brought Carnatic ragas such as Latangi, Kanakangi and Kharaharapriya into the sitar repertoire. Early on, he collaborated with Carnatic musician, Emani Sankara Sastri and with Jazz Pianist Dave Brubeck. He has played sitar for films like ‘Anarkali’, ‘Mughal-e- Azam’, ‘Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje’ and ‘Kohinoor’ and in songs that became classics.
Khan Saheb died at home, communicating till the end, reclining in his gaddi on the floor in the small hall of his flat, amidst his sitars and tablas, the walls decorated with an icon of goddess Saraswati, and his Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan and Sangeet Natak Akademi certificates.
In him, one got an unmistakable sense of a syncretic tradition. He embodies the fabled Indian capacity to assimilate and synthesise diverse influences – as an individualistic musician and as an heir to the Muslim-Hindu musical culture.
The writer is a Mumbai-based sociologist. She has edited the book ‘Jafferkhani Baaj’. She may be contacted at kamala.s.ganesh @gmail.com
