Sultans of string, Amaan Ali & Ayaan Ali, build a stairway to heaven in grand finale

Pune: On the final day of Times Celebrate Pune festival, brothers Amaan and Ayaan Ali Khan performed at a sarod recital for the audience at Liberty Square, the main performing space at the Phoenix Marketcity.

The brothers were accompanied on the percussions by Satyajit Talwalkar (tabla) and Shridhar Parthasarathi (mridangam). They had the audience in a trance, enthralling them as they worked their fingers on the strings over a two-hour performance. The audience got to see the duo perform together after a number of years, even though they have performed here individually many times.

“It is our honour and privilege to play in this city. And today, as the first part of our performance, we will play a raag that is almost never performed these days,” Ayaan said, introducing the performance to the audience.

And on the sarod, they rendered the raag Lalita Gauri — which was once rendered vocally and with great elegance by another city-based artist, Mogubai Kurdikar. On a stage aesthetically lit and with incense sticks alight on both the ends, the brothers, as well as Talwalkar and Shridhar, showed their mastery over the instruments. They played an aalaap, followed by the raag, on two different beats, one after the other.

Their aalaap was almost a prelude to the dexterity that the brothers would show with their sarods, and produced moments that sent the audience into a bursting applause, as they first played to ten, and later 16 beats. Talwalkar and Shridhar too, drew applauses from the audience.

And before they played the raag Jhinjhoti to nine-and-a-half beats, they made sure to educate the audience about the way the sarod is played and the efforts required to get the performance right, including filing of nails.

“The sarod is not played with the fingers. If it was played that way, the sound from it would be blunt. But the reason why the sound from the sarod is so sharp, is because we play it using the edges of our fingernails. And that is why we have to regularly stop and file our fingernails,” Ayaan remarked, to laughter from the crowd.

Though their performance would end after a few more raags and exchanges, for the audience, some of whom included fans of the duo’s father (the sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan), this was an evening to cherish for life.

“We were extremely happy when we heard that both Amaan and Ayaan are coming to perform in Pune, and that too together. I am a very big fan of their father, and their performance tonight reminded me of him. In fact, when Ayaan spoke, I was startled, because he sounded so much like Ustad Amjad Ali Khan sahab,” smiled Purnima Joshi, who was sitting in the audience with her family.


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