Sitar teacher of New York

Sitting on the floor of an ashram in Manhattan's Lower East Side, Ikhlaq Hussain tuned his student's sitar, with his fingers passing over the strings. This is how he likes to begin his lessons. His student, Satch, is a yoga teacher and started to learn the sitar five years ago at the behest of his spiritual guru. Hussain sat bare-footed and cross-legged, clad in an orange tunic with vertical embroidery along the chest. He unscrewed one of two carved knobs on top of the instrument, rubbing a bit of blue chalk on it and then screwed it back into place. He fiddled some more, tightening the strings, his fingers checking to see whether they sing to his tune yet. Then, finally, a burst of melody. 'I was waiting for that,' said Satch with a slight laugh. This had been a stressful week for him, he said, but the sitar helped to calm him down. Satch said that Hussain has turned out to be a very different teacher than he had expected. 'He didn't teach me every single vibration,' he said. 'But he gave me a very solid structure. He's very humble – he gives what he has learned from his father.'

Hussain moved to New York City from Karachi in October 2001, weeks after the attacks on the World Trade Center. What sealed the deal was a 1999 visit to the US to perform for a fashion show being put together by Pakistani designer Noorjehan Bilgrami. At the time, home was becoming more frustrating by the minute: Pakistan, Hussain said, was an artistic and financial vacuum. In case the American dream turned out to be a nightmare, he told himself, he could always go back. By the time he got around to it, Muslims in New York were feeling particularly vulnerable, and his family and friends advised him not to make the move. Nonetheless, he packed his sitar and boarded a flight to New York, coming in on a tourist visa but eventually being granted a 'green card' for permanent residency due to his exceptional musical ability.

As a young boy, the young Ikhlaq had been more interested in cricket than sitar. Then one day, when he was a teenager, he injured himself and was unable to play for a few days. His father, Imdad Hussain, a famous sitar player and his teacher, had never been in the habit of pressuring him; but now, he took the opportunity to ask Ikhlaq why he was neglecting the instrument. When he sheepishly confessed that cricket had prevented him from playing, his father asked him to make a choice. The boy chose the sitar over cricket and stuck to it.

Evolving

Imdad Hussain is perhaps the finest sitar player Pakistan has produced in its 60-plus years, said his childhood friend, Zaheer Kidvai. A Karachi-based connoisseur of classical music, Kidvai mentored the young Ikhlaq and exposed him to world music. Kidvai is an active supporter of classical music in Pakistan and is a friend of many musicians. Kidvai calls the older Hussain 'an actual malang', a term that roughly translates as 'mystic' – 'pure, free, not interested in this, that or the other,' he said.

Ikhlaq's parents migrated to Karachi from Delhi after Partition, where he was born and brought up. In Delhi, his father had been part of the local gharana, where classical music is traditionally passed down from one generation to another. Before, each gharana specialised in one instrument and became famous for it. But things have now changed. The members of the Delhi gharana, for instance, were tabla players originally, but now many have taken up stringed instruments. Hussain's grandfather was the first to break the tabla tradition to learn the sarangi; his father played the sitar. Of the younger generation of this large clan, many are not even musicians – Hussain and his teenage nephew, Turab, are the only ones.

Hussain thinks that Turab is going to be the best sitar player in the Subcontinent and supports him financially, aside from being his musical mentor. 'If I'm not in America, how will we pay for his education?' he asks. It is expensive to learn the sitar in Pakistan; the instrument alone costs over PKR 100,000. And while there is some scholarship money from individuals and organisations, the Pakistani government has not offered musicians any assistance since the 1977 military takeover. Further, Hussain complains that, in class-conscious Pakistan, musicians are held in disdain even today: mirasi, or musician, has derogatory connotations.

There is also religion to deal with. It was tough enough to make the choice as a young boy to learn music, he says; now, extremists in Pakistan have been a growing source of fear among musicians, even in Karachi. When asked his views on the abstinence from music demanded by some, he says, 'That's what the mullahs have said, not Mohammad.'

Of course, being a sitar player in the US is not much easier. While living with a cousin in New York, Hussain felt pressured to look for a 'real' job. As luck would have it, a fellow sitar player asked whether he would be interested in playing at a local Indian restaurant. Initially Hussain said no, thinking that he should focus solely on playing concerts, but eventually agreed. As it turned out, they were treated very well, because they attracted customers. He got free food and USD 300 a week – more money than he had ever made in his life.

Before long, the rush of receiving a fixed salary led him to neglect his art. A restaurant gig did not allow for much artistic growth, and Hussain said he became increasingly complacent because there was no expectation to improve. So, he forced himself to quit. Actually, this was the second time he had quit for such reasons. Years earlier he had played a regular gig at the Pearl Continental Hotel in Karachi. It was then that Saffia Beyg, a Pakistani classical singer and founder of Sampurna, which promotes classical music in Pakistan, discovered him. She helped him get a scholarship that allowed him to study with Ravi Shankar. This two-year scholarship was offered by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. The scholarship, which Hussain won in 1991, was flexible and was given to musicians so they could be exposed to classical music in Delhi. Hussain chose to study under Shankar in his Delhi home.

That was in 1991. As a young player, Hussain had showed great promise but, at the time, overshadowed by his father's name, few in Pakistan would have thought that he would ever be one of the best sitar players in the country, said Kidvai. Going to India to study under Shankar, however, was a massive step. 'Ravi Shankar told him he was good. That made him feel good and also made him less aggressive,' recalled Kidvai. In Kidvai's view, Hussain had moved from being a 'radical' player to a very good 'classical' player. While in his younger days he had beautiful moments while playing, he explained, now he could carry off an entire performance.

Kidvai believes that the move to the US actually helped Hussain improve as a sitar player. He says it is important for musicians in Pakistan to leave the country and see the world, in order to evolve their styles. 'Ravi Shankar has been playing for years overseas, but he's still evolving,' he says.

Adopting, maintaining

In their studio apartment, Hussain and his Hungarian wife, Judit Revesz, are having a slight argument. Her large blue exercise ball contrasts sharply with the sitar lying across the bed, covered with an ajrak bedspread. Revesz had wanted to see Zakir Hussain, the great percussionist, in an upcoming concert. 'But he didn't want to go,' she says. Ikhlaq, lounging on the bed, says that he has already seen him twice; Revesz retorts by asking whether he wants people to come to see his concerts just a couple of times.

Hussain and Revesz met a few years ago, in New York. Hussain's family is Shiite, and even before discussing marriage with his potential fiancé, Hussain spoke to his father about it – mentioning casually, at the very end of the conversation, that she was Jewish. The elder Hussain asked whether she would convert, to which Ikhlaq joked that perhaps he would, instead. That was that, apparently – no one mentioned religion thereafter, and no one converted. Revesz says that her father-in-law often says to her, 'If you're happy and Ikhlaq is happy, I'm happy.'

While Hussain believes that he needs to adapt to the culture of his adopted city (accepting, for instance, his students referring to him simply as 'Ikhlaq'), he does try to remain true to some cultural norms of the student-teacher relationship. When finishing the lesson with Satch, he hugs the young student as they part, insisting that he call when he has reached home safely in the subway. Some teachers do not teach with enough sincerity, Hussain says, for fear that the student will surpass them. Both he and his father, though, have long believed otherwise, says the sitar teacher of New York. 'Students love and respect us,' he says. 'That's our return.'

~ Hani Yousuf, a Berlin-based journalist, works on immigration issues in Europe.

Loading content, please wait...
Himal Southasian
www.himalmag.com