singing was as natural to us as breathing as i hum a taan in my mind words come to me and i pen them none but a guru could sing with such confidence and poise releasing and playing around with the seven notes with the ease of a wizard but the owner of the powerful voice that missed no note and flattened no taan is now a man feeble and bent with age several citations on the four walls of the room say that he had been honoured by top music schools and organisations of the city for completing his 100th year in 2008 even after learning for 17 years i realize that he is an abyss that we will never be able to fathom says shubhomoy bhattacharya one of his foremost disciples today today apart from singing and teaching his students for five to six hours daily the ustad gives in to his other passion writing will you believe that he already sings all the seven notes to the tanpura the voice certainly did not match the mental picture anyone would have of a 105yearold man this oldest performing musician of the country is a guru at itcs sangeet research academy in tollygunge and is revered as baba not only by his students but by everyone else too reminding one of the legendary baba allaudin of maihar guru of pandit ravi shankar babas voice trails off but his eyes bright with expectation while he himself has immortalised some of them there are many that have been adopted by other singers too in the midst of the conversation babas oneandahalfyearold greatgrandson walks in and plants himself on his lap as we approached the ustads residence strains of darbari kanara wafted in the air accompanied by the sonorous strumming of the tanpura there was no mistaking the deep and melodious voice that rendered the saiyyan bedardi na jaane it was young and full of vitality it is like a hobby he writes bandish in brijbhasha and most of these have become extremely popular in the field of hindusthani raag sangeet the ustad is just back in the city which he has made his home since the early 90s after having performed in a music conference in allahabad he is perhaps a rare example of an artist who has celebrated his centenary with his fans and is still going strong kolkata before i knew it i was getting talim from my fathers elder brother ustad yusuf khan of the gwalior gharana even at this age the slightest deviation from a note gets captured in babas ears for the first 30 years of my talim i would do riyaz for even as long as 15 hours on days when i had no school at this age i perhaps live for my music and also perhaps because i want to bequeath all that i have learnt to this child at 105 ustad abdul rashid khan finds no difficulty attending music conferences across the