Falstaff has written the best homage to Ustad Bismillah Khan I have read so far in the "blogsphere". I have been listening to Ustad Saab's music (his own & his jugalbandis) over at MusicIndiaOnline all day today. As Falstaff put it:

"Each time Ustaad Bismillah Khan put that shehnai to his lips what came out was music as revelation, as a life force, music that transcended itself to become something even more elemental, music (to use the exact urdu word) as ibaadat. To hear Bismillah Khan play was to lose sight of the boundaries between man and music, so that it was no longer clear whether the shehnai was the instrument of the player or the player was the instrument of the shehnai. Music erupted from this man as a metamorphic force, a sort of beautiful magma. It wasn't just the silence that was torn apart, it was the music itself."

Go listen, and be moved.

I was looking around to read something that internalized the spirit of Bismillah Khan and his music (and interchangeably so). Am I glad I checked your post today!

thanks Sashi for the music and Falstaff's thoughts.

• Rajesh