Ali Akbar Khan’s family seeks heritage status for legend’s house

Kolkata: Ustad Aashish Khan and his family members have applied to KMC to declare 159/1A Rashbehari Avenue, where his father Ustad Ali Akbar Khan lived, a heritage property.
The proposal was recently tabled at KMC’s Heritage Conservation Committee. “In a letter dated Jan 5, we have asked Ali Akbar’s ancestors to submit documents establishing the property’s heritage value,” a member of the heritage panel said.
Ustad Aashish Khan has put together a host of invaluable photographs and documents relating to the Maihar Seniya Gharana founded by Ustad Ali Akbar’s father, Acharya Baba Alauddin Khan.Groundbreaking music for Ray’s films like ‘Apur Sansar’, ‘Devi’, ‘Jalsaghar’ Tapan Sinha’s ‘Khudito Pashan’ and ‘Jotugriha’, background scores for Richard Attenborough’s ‘Gandhi’ and David Lean’s ‘Passage to India’ were made here. Melody Queen Lata Mangeshkar had visited the house. So had people like Alla Rakha, Nikhil Banerjee and Zakir Hussain.
“As a torch-bearer of the Maihar Seniya Gharana, I would like to preserve our house in Gariahat where four generations of our family have lived,” said Ustad Ali Akbar’s grandson Shiraz Khan.
The rented property in his grandfather’s name now functions as a music school. “The property is owned by a trust. We have no idea if the trustees are alive. I haven’t been in touch for decades,” Shiraz said. The family has been paying the rent in Rent Control since the 1970s. “My uncle Aashish Khan maintains the house,” said Sahana Khan, daughter of Ali Akbar’s second son, the late Dhyanesh Khan.
“There are scores of documents, like copies of awards like Padma Bhushan conferred to Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, to prove that this family practised and worked with eminent musicians, vocalists and internationally-acclaimed film-makers here,” Sahana, an IT practitioner in Bengaluru, said. She has in her possession pictures of Ali Akbar and his first wife Zubeda Khan with their five children.