While most college students have enough difficulty deciding on a
major, it’s hard to believe that someone like Shujaat Husain
Khan started preparing for his career when he was just 3 years
old.
But then again, maybe there aren’t too many options when
you’re the seventh in a long line of professional
musicians.
Since birth, the Indian sitar player was surrounded by music in
his house, and he said that this made making music come as
naturally as eating. Khan began playing music when he was three and
started playing solo at age six. Ustad Vilayat Khan, plays the role
of both music teacher and father in Shujaat’s life. On
Thursday night, the two will come together to give a concert at
Royce Hall.
By the look on the musicians’ faces, it is evident that
the Khans enjoy performing together.
“There’s a lot of smiles and exchange of musical
thoughts,” Shujaat said. “Of course there are periods
where one of us might go into really deep thoughts, but then you
come out of it and go into collaboration again.”
It hasn’t been easy for this father and son to reach this
point in their relationship. Coming from a family with a reputation
of being successful Indian classical musicians, there was always a
lot of pressure and scrutiny from the public eye on Khan. He felt
that he had no choice but to pursue music like his father, and the
pressure to be a musician didn’t come just from his
parents.
“I not only blame my father and mother, but the whole
music world in general somehow gets it across to you that if you
don’t become a musician you have done a great disservice to
the nation, and to Indian classical music, and to your
family,” Khan said.
The situation only became trickier with the Khans balancing the
relationship of father and son with that of teacher and student.
Both men had great expectations from one another.
“(I would be) absolutely submissive and ready to listen to
anything he said in a musical sense, as a teacher, and (the
situation would) flip the next minute into a relationship of a
father and son where I’m questioning authority, like every
growing son does with his father,” Khan said, “The
father-son relationship always suffered a little bit because of the
relationship also being a very big part of our (musical)
lives.”
And this problem reached a climax in the ’80s when the
Khans experienced a decade in their lives where they rarely saw one
another, and didn’t play together. Part of this was due to
the younger Khan looking to establish his own personality in the
music world. However, Shujaat admits that he never had to struggle
much to distinguish his own music, something that was different
from that of his father.
“I have his genes, his blood. It’s all naturally
there,” Khan said, “All I have to do is incorporate it
with my own emotions and feelings. So, all I did was see to it that
I did not put a lid on how I felt musically and what kind of person
I was. This is not a written art form, on something that is
precomposed. We do it right there.”
However, the Khans got to a point in their lives where they
recognized they had expectations of each other that were impossible
to achieve. So, for the past eight years, the Khans have started
playing together again and are working hard at restoring their
relationship.
“I’m 42, and I’m at the time when I’m
mellowing and understanding things. So, we are really enjoying the
time that we spend together, the music that we play together and
opportunities like these,” Shujaat said.
“Because I have a very busy career, opportunities like
these where we can both get a chance to play together in a
beautiful setting are a very, very rare and very special
times,” he said.
As Shujaat has been teaching at UCLA for the past four years, he
will be surrounded by friends and students, among others, in Royce
Hall.
“(Los Angeles) is my home. The university is my
home,” he said. “So, what I am really looking forward
to is that it’s going to be a big concert minus the tension
and formality.”
Now when the Khans talk, Ustad reminds his son that he went
through some of the same struggles with his own father.
“We do talk and I hear stories of how it must have been
for him, too,” Shujaat said, “Of course, then he took
revenge on me!”
Ustad Vilayat and Shujaat Husain Khan perform at Royce Hall on
May 8. Call the Central Ticket Office at (310) 825-2101 for
info.