Bismillah Khan - Questions Answers

 

Lesson - 2 : Bismillah Khan ( Part 2 )

[A] Comprehension 

1

(I) Pungi was the name of a reeded musical instrument.

(II) No . Most people thought that pungi would never  revive .

(III) The barber decided to improve the tonal quality of the pungi .

2

(I) Bismillah Khan played gilli danda near a pond in the ancient estate of  Dumarao in Bihar.

(II) He would regularly go to the nearby Bihariji

temple to sing the Bhojpuri ‘Chaita’.

(III) At the end he would earn a big laddu weighing 1.25 kg, a prize given by the local Maharaja.

(IV) He earned the highest civilian award in India — the Bharat Ratna.

3

(I) The young boy took to music early in life.

(II) At the age of three when his mother took him to his maternal uncle’s house in Benaras (now Varanasi), Bismillah was fascinated watching his uncles practise the shehnai.

(III) Bismillah started accompanying his uncle, Ali Bux, to the Vishnu temple of Benaras where Bux was employed to play the shehnai.

(IV) When Ali Bux would play the shehnai , Bismillah would sit captivated for hours on end.

4

(I) Bismillah Khan has given many memorable

performances both in India and abroad .

(II) In Afghanistan  King Zahir Shah was taken in by the maestro . He gifted him priceless Persian carpets and other souvenirs as gifts .

(III) Besides the king of Afghanistan the  Film director Vijay Bhatt was also impressed with his music .

(IV) Here 'he' refers to the film director Vijay Bhatt .

[B] Short Answer Type Questions

1. Pungi was banned by the Emperor Aurangzeb in his royal residence .

2.When pungi was banned , most of the people thought that it would never revive in the future

3.Having decided to improve the tonal

quality of the pungi the barber chose a pipe with a natural hollow stem that was longer and broader than the pungi, and made seven holes on the body of the pipe.

4. Since the reformed musical instrument was first played in the Shah’s chambers and was played by a nai (barber),it was named the ‘shehnai’.

5.Till recently it was used only in temples and weddings. The credit for bringing this instrument onto the classical stage goes to Ustad Bismillah Khan.

6.  As a five-year old, Bismillah Khan played gilli danda near a pond in the ancient estate of Dumraonin Bihar.

7. Bismillah belongs to a well-known family of musicians from Bihar. His grandfather, Rasool Bux Khan, was the shehnai nawaz of the Bhojpur king’s court. His father,Paigambar Bux, and other paternal ancestors were also great shehnai players.

8. At the age of three , Bismillah Khan watched his uncles practise the shehnai .Soon Bismillah started accompanying his uncle, Ali Bux, to the Vishnu temple of Benaras where

Bux was employed to play the shehnai.

9.The flowing waters of the Ganga inspired him to improvise and invent ragas that were earlier considered to be beyond the range

of the shehnai

10. With the opening of the All India Radio in

Lucknow in 1938 came Bismillah’s big break. He soon became an often-heard shehnai player on radio.

11. When India gained independence on 15 August 1947, Bismillah Khan became the first Indian to greet the nation with his shehnai.It became a memorable day for him.

12.When Bismillah made his first trip to Afghanistan King Zahir Shah was so taken in by the maestro that he gifted him priceless Persian carpets and other souvenirs .

13. National awards like the Padma Shri, the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan and the Bharat Ratna were conferred on him.  

14. After receiving the Bharat Ratna Bismillah Khan advised the parents, "Teach your children music,this is Hindustan’s richest tradition; even the West is now coming to learn our music.’’

[C] Long Answer Type Questions

(1)Bismillah Khan was introduced to music in his childhood. At the age of five he enjoyed playing gilli danda and also participated in the collective singing of chaita in the Bihariji temple ,in the estate of Dumaraon at the end of which he would receive a big laddu weighing 1.25 kg.

At the age of three he had watched his uncles practise the shehnai and  by eleven he had started accompanying Ali Bux , his uncle , to the Vishnu Temple where he watched him play shehnai for hours on end and learned the skill . For years to come he kept practising in the temple of Balaji and Mangala Maiya and on the bank of the Ganga which inspired him to improvise and invent many ragas on the shehnai. When he was fourteen years old  his performance in the Allahabad Music Conference was praised by the great musician Ustad Faiyaz Khan .

(2)Awards and recognition came thick and fast. Bismillah Khan became the first Indian to be invited to perform at the prestigious Lincoln Centre Hall in the United States of America. He also took part in the World Exposition in Montreal, in the Cannes Art Festival and in the Osaka Trade Fair. So well known did he become internationally that an auditorium in Tehran was named after him —

Tahar Mosiquee Ustaad Bismillah Khan. National awards like the Padma Shri, the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan were conferred on him. In 2001, Ustad Bismillah Khan was awarded India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.

(3) Yes , we agree that Bismillah Khan loved India , Benaras and Dumaraon very much .A

student of his once wanted him to head a shehnai school in the U.S.A., and the student promised to recreate the atmosphere of Benaras by replicating the temples there. But Khansaab asked him if he would be able to transport River Ganga as well. Later he is remembered to have said, “That is why

whenever I am in a foreign country, I keep yearning to see Hindustan. While in Mumbai, I think of only Benaras and the holy Ganga. And while in Benaras,I miss the unique mattha of Dumraon.”

(4) Bismillah Khan was brought into films by Vijay Bhatta , the film director who was one of his biggest fans. He was so impressed with his shehnai that he named one of his films after it - Gunj Uthi Shehnai . The film was a hit, and one of Bismillah Khan’s compositions, “Dil ka khilona hai toot gaya ...,” turned

out to be a nationwide chartbuster! Despite this huge success in the celluloid world, Bismillah Khan’s ventures in film music were limited to two: Vijay Bhatt’s Gunj Uthi Shehnai and Vikram Srinivas’s Kannada venture, Sanadhi Apanna. He could not remain in the film industry due to his inability to bear with its glamour and artificiality . “I just

can’t come to terms with the artificiality and

glamour of the film world,” he says with emphasis .