The sitar, though, wasn't the primary concern of Khan's childhood. Instead, his father pushed him towards vocal training, with him starting to learn the sitar seriously only when he was about 15 years old. But what happened as a result is that the teenager's approach to his craft was different from that of many others. "Our style of playing is gayakiana anyway. So, we were always taught each phrase vocally. We would first sing it and then play it on the sitar. And what happens then is that the strokes of the instrument become the syllables of the words," the 43-year-old explains.

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He also says that by the age of 18, he was proficient enough to be invited for his first solo European tour, where he was in for a rude shock. The thing is, Ustad Vilayat Khan was a coveted name across the world by the time his youngest son was born. Khan was hence used to seeing his father travelling first-class and being put up in five-star hotels whenever he toured. But that wasn't the case for him for this series of European concerts. His plane tickets were economy and hotels were out of the question. So, when Khan returned home to Baltimore in America, he was hopping mad. "I threw a tantrum for three straight days, and after that my father called up somebody he knew who ran a mid-level Indian restaurant and made me go there and play the sitar every evening, with people sometimes saying, 'Kya hai yeh? Khana khane do yaar.' That was my father's way of telling me that ours isn't a virasat of kings, where he gets off the throne and I get on. He said, 'If you want to do music, it's not going to be on my back. You'll have to figure your way out.' So my career has been completely my own."

That career has now reached such illustrious heights that the maestro has performed with the likes of Alicia Keys, Usher and The Rolling Stones. His Mumbai concert, too, will have a galaxy of stars, since it will also feature Fazal Qureshi, Ustad Alla Rakha Khan's son; guitarist Sanjay Divecha and Indus Creed pianist Zubin Balaporia among others. The music will be a complex mix of Indian and western sounds, with a fair amount of improvisation on the cards. Khan reveals that the same outfit is slated to tour the US later this year. "It will be sometime in September," he tells us, which only goes to show the battles that his sitar case will have to keep waging are still far from over.

On April 17, 7 pm onwards
AT Royal Opera House, Girgaum. Log on to insider.in
Cost Rs 300 to Rs 1,200

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