That is an excellent point. He looks like he is in his 60s to me.

please don't count his age. he need to be like this for years ,

Dont count his age , he has to live for 150 of years , because his place is very inportant and nobody is there to fill his place

Agree. Just with a different approach... Ek vishnu to dusra Shiv.. Just two schools of thought. Nikhil ji's ulta chikari style was something never done before... Ahaaa ❤❤❤🙏🏻

Agreed wholeheartedly..

हो, हे तर सारखे स्वतःच्याच घराण्याची लाल करतात. निखिल बॅनर्जी साहेबांच्या वादनातील मेलडी अतुल्य होती.

While i agree with you about beauty of Nikhil Babu' sitar, shahidji's statement can be true as musically Vilayat Khan came much before Nikhil Banerjee. But I feel Ali Akbar khansaheb and Pannalal Ghosh were as good as VK in instrumental aalapi.

​@@craiglistacct9070absolutely agreed. Specially ali akbar khan sahab . His alap was as good as the alap of vilayat khan sahab for me .

It's possible Ustad Shahid Parvez is too humble to realise that he might just be better. Maybe not in creativity, but possibly in skill.

@@jijo2002 Yes brother you are 100% right !! Nikhil babu is indeed special. Every time you hear him, he takes you to a different level of meditative trance. A true saint of sitar. How he does that is very hard to say. Whether it is riyaaz, sadhana or a combination---but it is something that no-one else is able to replicate. Not the skill---but the sheer feeling, the sheer emotions. No words to express really !!

Enjoy boss

Yes, Pt. Budhaditya Mukherjee, please!

Agreed .

We are keenly aware of the positioning of the camera- but the sitting position of the main artist and the audience cannot be altered due to the structure of the hall. Many thanks for your comments.

Many people are grateful to you for uploading rare gems of Indian classical music on your channel.

@@pt.arvindparikh you can turn on the curtains on the windows!

Satya Subrahmanyam- all our recent baithaks have English sub- titles. We understand that music lovers all over the world listen/ view our baithaks. Ours is an humble effort- lapses do occur but ........

It is not that great musicians don’t teach outside their family. I don’t belong to Ustad Vilayatkhan Saheb’s family, but I was his devoted fortunate shagird for 60 long years. It is a question of insecurity- a fear that their sons may find it difficult to maintain themselves if they cannot overtake their other shagird’s artistry. But these days the situation is different- Ustads and Pandits freely training all their students without any bias.

I want to wish arvindji many more years of healthy life. He is doing something that has not been done before, democratization of the music that was kept within families for generations.

In reference to this, I like what maestros Ustad alam Khan and Kaushiki charkrabarty has said ( quoted as-is from a newspaper interview) Ustad Alam Khan speaks of the relevance of maintaining the gharana tradition in modern times. “I think there is something very honourable and powerful in spending one’s life, studying one particular style. That is not to say that other styles are not valuable. I think it’s your job to know very well your style, and build upon that foundation, before you go and start taking things from other gharanas and building on to your house,” says Khan, the son of legendary Sarod Maestro Ali Akbar Khan who has been in the trained in the Maihar Seni Gharana since the age of seven. Kaushiki ji says - If you observe, the gharana tradition has a geographical reference. They are named after a place. A particular style of music was developed in a particular area as a community culture. That was a time when there was no communication among places, and so the music also developed without any outside references,” she explains about the social dynamics of the time when gharanas began. “But today at the click of a mouse we know what is happening anywhere. At a time like this, it is impossible for a living tradition like Indian classical music, to stick to an ideology that was developed at a time when no communication was possible,” she says adding that in these changed times, the strictness and restrictive nature of gharanas is impossible to be relevant anymore. Equally important to note is that the princely patronage earlier available to the gharanas has long gone. Does this mean that gharanas have lost all relevance? Chakraborty does not believe so. She says that the gharana in which one is trained is just as relevant as one’s home. “Though you can take a flight and go anywhere these days, the relevance of home does not cease to exist. To belong to a gharana is to belong to your home. It is where you come back. It’s like an anchor, without which one would be lost.” I think its the same thing with cultural / community beliefs. I think having a cultural identity is very important. I am a deep person and have learnt and am learning korean culture in great depths (mostly its korean cooking and then a little bit of their/korean language Hangul) but as far as my spiritual and cultural traditions are concerned, i as a Hindu have adhered to my Hindu-community culture which helps me remain emotionally strong to overcome bad times / especially crisis situations. I have been able to retain this cultural identity of mine because of an upbringing with firm foundation. I think its very important to have this firm foundation especially in the phase of / from childhood to adulthood otherwise its like "American Born Confused Desi (indians) - ABCD" very popular term here in the USA. All my cousins are ABCD. At parents level, the parents retain lot of their cultural intricacies but because their children are over-exposed to different cultures and races since early childhood, they cannot connect with their parents on a deeper cultural level and parents have to accept huge huge changes in that regards...Each to his own but as under-exposure to different cultures is an issue, over-exposure to too many different ideologies / cultures and contact with too many different cultures and belief-system for an extended amount of time is equally an issue. I am a deeper person emotionally and spiritually so i choose to preserve some of my cultural intricacies/cultural legacy that other people very easily let go off for money and certain kind of lifestyle. Probably because everyone is not that deep and is wired differently ( spiritually and emotionally)..Each to his own but i personally do strongly feel that it is must to have a spiritual / cultural home (anchor) because i have and am living through this where its very easy to get lost. So yea I like learning and doing things of different indian and non-indian cultures but at the same time I want to be able to preserve the cultural intricacies/uniqueness of my own community-culture. indianexpress.com/article/research/bandish-bandits-gharanas-hindustani-classical-music-mughal-decline-6581735/

All our recent baithaks have English sub titles. Shahid’s baithak was much earlier hence it would be very difficult to add sub titles. Thanks for your understanding

@@pt.arvindparikh It would be possible to insert the text as a comment.

I am not sure after listening to baithak with Shujat Khan. First off, it's quite clear to me that Ustad Shahid Parvez has greater regard for Ustad Vilayat Khan than Shujat. Also, it appears that he has done more riyaz and has sorted out his thinking about many aspects of playing sitar e.g. using space between two swaras, use of sarod style strokes to lend more gravity to sound, use of mizrab bols from his gharana for certain gats etc. Thus it's Ustad Shahid Parvez and not Shujat who is the torch bearer of Itawa gharana.

Btw itwaa wagairaa sab jhut hai. Rais khansahab was true saying Vilayat khan follows our gharana. Itwaa wagairaa sab jhooth hai