New Delhi: A commemorative postage stamp has been released on Shehnai legend Ustad Bismillah Khan by the Union Ministry for Telecommunications and IT.
Releasing the stamp, prime minister Manmohan Singh described the late maestro as a unique personification of India’s composite culture. Bharat Ratna Ustad Bismillah Khan Saheb became synonymous in the public imagination with the Shehnai he played so much that we remember him every time we hear the Shehnai, he said.
Dr Singh said Ustad Bismillah Khan Saheb was the very embodiment of his own sentiment that an artiste becomes a true artiste only when he strives to meet God. He expressed this through his music which elevated his listeners to a sublime state of higher consciousness.
Ustad Bismillah Khan’s life and art were not separate compartments for him. He received his initial education from his uncle Ali Bux ‘Vilayatu’, who was the official Shehnai player at the famous Kashi Vishwanath temple at Varanasi. From his first public appearance at the age of 14, his music led him through several gates of fame and glory leading to the conferment of Bharat Ratna, but he remained what he always was – as somebody trying to reach out to his God through his music.
Dr Singh said it was no exaggeration to say that his music was divine, soothing nerves and having a balming effect on people who listen to that. The transformation of the Shehnai from a mere accompanying piece in concerts to a respected instrument owes a lot to the creative endeavours of Ustad Bismillah Khan Saheb. The seven decades of his eventful and artistic life were inseparably woven with the Shehnai and the marvel of his music was deeply rooted in our composite heritage and culture.
A devout Muslim, he did not find any contradiction between his faith and music. Many questioned his love for music on the ground that it tarnished the holy name of Islam. “We live in times where the richest in the Indian tradition, exemplified in the lives of people like Bismillah Khan Saheb, sometimes get challenged. There cannot be a closing of the Indian mind howsoever much a few people may try because that is against the very grain of being Indian. At the root of the Indian tradition is a mind that is comfortable with difference and plurality. This Indian way, which has been nourished by the soulful strains of the Shehnai of Bismillah Khan Saheb and people like him, will survive and it will constantly continue to surprise and motivate others”, he said.
Telecom Minister A Raja and Union Minister of State for Telecom Jyotiraditya Scindia were among dignitaries present on the occasion.