Member-only story
Mourning and Rebirth
An Obituary for Ali Akbar Khan
Complete book available at this Link
When Ali Akbar Kahn’s advanced age began to adversely affect his sarod
playing, many of us made sure to attend as many of his concerts as we could. Those last concerts were like observing a ruin of a great piece of architecture that would soon disappear forever. There was still much that reminded us that no one ever played like Khansahib at his best, and that now no one ever would again. When he finally retired from performing, despite our desperate standing ovations in concert after concert, how could we deny that he was mortal and would soon sink into history? Everyone knew that he would leave us soon, and yet that did nothing to stop the grief when the inevitable finally occurred.
For the rest of his life, he continued to teach essentially fulltime at the Ali Akbar College of Music (AACM), even though he was in constant pain and under regular medical treatment. “On the day before he died, several of us students decided without talking to each other about it, that we all wanted to see him one more time”, said vocalist Gayatri Kaudinya “We thought that if we asked to come, someone might say no, so thirty or forty of us just showed up. We clustered around Baba, and he told me to bring him a harmonium, then asked me what my last lesson was. He taught all of us for…
