Anubhav Sinha falls for unverified claims of Ustad Bismillah Khan's house being demolished as part of civil infra expansion

Mumbai: Filmmaker-producer Anubhav Sinha seems to have fallen for unverified claims about the Bharat Ratna awardee, Ustad Bismillah Khan. The filmmaker expressed his resentment towards the treatment meted out to the late legend by the society.

On Monday, the filmmaker took to his X, formerly Twitter, and penned a long note in which he spoke about his recent visit to Varanasi. The house of the legendary musician was recently demolished, and the social media quickly became populated with claims of the demolition being carried out as part of road infra expansion. The filmmaker harped his note around the resentment, and questioned the treatment of the legend.

He wrote, “I went to Varanasi a few months ago. There are a lot of young influencers there now. In their own world, they’re big shots, making names for themselves, gaining fame, but they showed me my Banaras once again, with so much love. They know Banaras better than I do. They love the city. They were taking me around when I suddenly felt like visiting Bismillah Khan’s house. The motorcycles turned around. We reached Khan’s house”.

He shared that the house was not in the condition Bismillah Khan’s house should have been in. He called him an honest man, and shared that it could be because he never earned enough money to improve the surroundings of the house he had earned so much fame, knowledge and respect.

He further mentioned, “All his albums are still being played today, but as far as I was told, not a penny in royalties reaches his home. His family welcomed us with so much love. His room was on the roof. They took me there and opened it for me. There was a chair, a wooden bed he used to sleep on. A few broken shehnais on a cupboard. He used to practice on that very roof. I don’t know how long I sat there. There was nothing on the walls for me to look at or read. I became tearful, which doesn’t happen easily. I felt as though I were sitting with him. I left from there very reluctantly”.

He went on, “When I went to Varanasi many years ago, a journalist told me a little story about him. In an interview, a journalist friend had asked him, “Sometimes you start smiling while playing the shehnai. What is going through your mind?” He said, ‘How can you hit the right note every day? When you do, your heart is happy’. This was the man whose fingers made notes dance like puppets. I once told this story to Sunidhi Chauhan. She turned her face away and stood silent for ten minutes. So did I”.

He then recollected another incident during his time in Europe, and how he planted the seed of the shehnai legend’s legacy in the France.

He shared, “A few months ago, my friend and I were on a long road trip in Europe. A long, beautiful road. Music was playing in the car. Jan Garbarek is a great Norwegian jazz saxophonist. He’s eighty-nine now. He was casting a spell. The saxophone is also part of the shehnai family, so Khan came to mind. I asked my French friend, ‘Have you heard Bismillah Khan?’ He said, ‘No’. For the next three hours, Khan was playing on the roads of Europe. My friend asked curiously, ‘Is this from before Garbarek?’ I told him Khan was born in 1916. My friend said, ‘He did all the things that happened in the West much later’. Ustad Bismillah Khan’s house, a Bharat Ratna, has been demolished in Banaras. A road has to pass through there. Roads are necessary too. I believe Banaras must have done everything it could to save it. Banaras and Khan loved each other deeply”.

“He was invited all over the world, but he always returned to Varanasi. He used to say there was no place like Banaras anywhere in the world. His house has been demolished. Well, it has been demolished now. Its demolition must have been absolutely necessary, but that is not why I am writing this. This is written for those younger than us. The reason is that those of you who don’t know about him should learn about him, listen to him, and tell the next generation. He was a devotee of Mother Saraswati and Lord Shiva. He was also a Maulana. He would bathe in the Ganga, sit behind the temple and practice. He was a source of pride for the country. It is your responsibility to carry him and his music to the next generation. Our generation couldn’t even save his house. Please do it. They are our heritage and our responsibility. Long live”, he added.

The Varanasi Development Authority has denied issuing any demolition orders, the demolition has been done by his own family for renovation. The family has also proposed setting up a museum dedicated to Bharat Ratna Ustad Bismillah Khan at the same site after the reconstruction.

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