The Legacy (I)- Ustaad Amanat Ali Khan

Ustaad Amanat Ali Khan

“A sweeter voice than Amanat Ali Khan’s we are privileged to hear but once in a blue moon” 

 ~ A. Hamid, distinguished Pakistani Urdu novelist and short story writer

There’s a Chinese proverb which says- “Tiger father begets tiger son”. Today is Shafqat’s birthday and there couldn't be a  better day than today to pay a tribute to Ustaad Amanat Ali Khan, his father, and one of the greatest influences on his music.

My first brush with the Patiala Gharana singing happened years ago and I wasn't even aware of it. It was the 1980’s…a small hill cantonment tucked away in the mountain ranges in  north India.- a place where the only television everybody  loved to watch was PTV from across the border. There were some great stuff on air and the music was different and exciting. One of the many songs that I got to listen was the very famous“Ae mere watan Pyare watan” by Ustad Amanat Ali. I didn't know who he was back then, but the beautiful song and its beautiful rendition stayed with me.

Years later, it was his son’s singing that set me on a path of discovery of the music of this legend who took the Patiala Gharana tradition to new heights.

Born in 1931 in Patiala, India, Amanat Ali Khan was the eldest son of Ustad Akhtar Hussain and the grandson of Ustaad Ali Baksh, one of the founders of the great Patiala Gharana. Shafqat in an interview reveals that his father was a child who began talking rather late.Scientific research shows that some of the late talking children grow up to be exceptional minds with special abilities in areas that involve analytic skills. And music, after all , is nothing but the arrangement of the seven swars into countless permutations and combinations.

Amanat Ali debuted in the music world with a public performance along with his younger brother Fateh Ali Khan when he was barely into his teens and after that there was no looking back.

As I searched for some information on Ustaad Amanat Ali Khan I chanced upon an article on the band called RagaBoyz, which is formed by Amanat Ali’s grand nephews, the sons of his youngest brother Hamid Ali. It gave me some insight into the man and what his music meant to him. 

It describes an incident about how the Amanat- Fateh duo were on a flight from Dhaka to Kathmandu while their plane hit an area of severe turbulence. A scared and worried Fateh Ali was surprised to see a calm Ustad Amanat Ali humming to himself – he seemed to be almost in a trance. “Aren't you scared?” asked the younger brother. “Hush,”said the elder one. “Listen to what I just composed”. It was one of his very popular thumris, Kab Aaogey, in the Raag Bhairavi. 

I was beginning to get intrigued, when I found another article written by a friend of his, for a Pakistani daily in which among many other anecdotes, the writer, A. Hamid recalls a particular day with Amanat Ali…

“Amanat and I …sitting in a Government College hostel room … Amanat is dusting an old harmonium with his handkerchief. The instrument is untuned, but that does not deter Amanat from unravelling a raag in that beautiful voice of his. He loved the raag JaiJaivanti and he used to say that there were nights when he was able to physically invoke the presiding goddess of that divine raag.”

This spiritual connection that he had with his music comes through in another article published in the Gulf news in March 2003, written by Shoaib Hashmi, that reminiscences of Lahore in the 1960’s…

“In the Lahore of the sixties, Amanat Ali and Fateh Ali Khan sang their way into legend. Amanat Ali especially had a voice of such sweetness; a style of the delicacy of the tread of fairies; and to boot, he had a countenance of such beauty that when steeped in his music, he shone like an other-worldly being and you couldn't look him in the eyes” 

Though he was primarily a Khayaal singer his versatility is wonderfully showcased in the thumris, ghazals and the memorable patriotic songs that he has sung. A.Hamid remembers him as “handsome”, “a natty dresser” and “a man wit superb taste in literature”. The Pak Teahouse in Lahore often crops up in connection with Ustaad Amanat Ali- the traditional hangout for writers, intellectuals, and literary personalities. The Ustaad is said to have been especially fastidious about the correct rendering words, especially when he sang Ghazals, and would often discuss the exact pronunciation of words with the poets whose works he sang.

I love whatever I have had a chance to listen in his voice but I am particularly fond of his Ghazals. Here are some of my favorites

1) Bringing Ghalib to life… a soulful rendition of  “Ye na thee hamari Kismat...”

2) “Hothon pe kabhi unke mera naam hi aaye” - One of his best

3) “Aa mere pyaar ki khushboo”- Darbaari delight!

4) Hua so hua…

5) Yaar ko mainey, mujhe yaar ne sone na diya…

6) Ek Khalish ko Hasil-e-Umr-e-Rawan Rehne Diya

7) Mausam Badla Rut Gadrayi

8) Insha Ji Utho- Saving the best for the last. Some songs are just made for some singers...some singers, just for some songs!

In 1974 at the age of just 42, this legendary artist succumbed to complications of an appendicitis attack, leaving behind his music which continues to live on in the hearts of his admirers

"Are we not like two volumes of one book?"-wrote Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, in reference to the father – son relationship.

I hope that Shafqat will seriously consider re recording some of these gems… The Ghazals by Ustad Amaant Ali certainly deserve a second volume!

This is first in the series of posts on the beautiful legacy of music that is the Patiala Gharana- the tradition to which Shafqat Amanat Ali belongs.