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Ustaad Bismillah Khan said that whenever he visited any foreign country, he longed to see India.
He wanted to return to India. And then he says that when he was in India, in Mumbai, he yearned
to visit Benaras and the Ganga River. And when he was in Benaras, he missed his birth place
Dumraon and the Mattha where he sang chaita and was rewarded with the laddu of 1.25 kg
weight by the Maharaja.

Ustaad Bismillah Khan’s life is a perfect example of the rich, cultural heritage of India, one that
effortlessly accepts that a devout Muslim like him can very naturally play the shehnai every
morning at the Kashi Vishwanath temple.

devout: believing strongly in a religion and obeying its laws and following its practices

Here the writer says that Ustaad Bismillah Khan was a perfect example of the rich cultural
heritage of India. His work was beyond the religion barriers. Although he was a strict Muslim, he
followed the Muslim laws but every morning he would play the shehnai at the Kashi Vishwanath
Temple, which was a Hindu temple. This shows that he did not have the barriers of religion in
his mind. He was a true Indian. He considered music to be India’s richest cultural heritage.

Ustaad Bismillah Khan passed away on 21 August 2006 at the age of ninety after a prolonged
illness. He was given a state funeral and the Government of India declared one day of national
mourning.

Ustaad Bismillah Khan had been ill for a long time and he died on 21 August 2006 at the age of
ninety. The entire country mourned the death of the legendary musician. There was a holiday
for one day and he was given a state funeral.

Summary (to be copied in the note book)
Bismillah Khan made a valuable contribution to the world of music through the ‘shehnai’. For
this, he was honoured with India’s highest civilian honour – the Bharat Ratna in 2001. He hailed
from a family of musicians. He improvised many new ragas with the shehnai and thus, placed it
among other classical musical instruments. He won accolades on the international level too.

The Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb banned the playing of the pungi in his royal court. He disliked
the sound and so, the pungi was termed to be a noisemaker. A barber tried to improve the
pungi’s tone. He got a hollow stem, wider and longer than the pungi, made seven holes on it
and blew into it, closing and opening the holes. It produced soft, melodious music. As this
instrument had been developed by a barber called ‘nai’ in India and was played in the king’s
court called ‘shah’, the instrument was named ‘shehnai’. The shehnai became a part of
auspicious occasions. It was a part of the group of nine musical instruments that were played at
the royal court.

Bismillah Khan was born at Dumraon, Bihar in 1916 into a family of musicians. His grandfather
Rasool Bux Khan played the shehnai at the court of the king of Bhojpur. His father, Paigambar
Bux and his paternal as well as maternal uncles were shehnai players. As a child, Bismillah
Khan would visit the Bihariji temple to sing the Bhojpuri Chaita for which the king rewarded him
with a laddu weighing 1.25kg. At the age of three, Bismillah Khan visited his maternal uncle, Ali
Bux at Benaras. He saw him playing the shehnai and was fascinated by it. At the age of five, he
started learning playing it. He would spend hours practicing, at the temple of Balaji and Mangala