{{Short description|Musician sitar player (1894-1938)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2018}} {{Use Indian English|date=September 2018}} {{Infobox person | name = Ustad Enayat Khan | image =<!-- just the name, without the File: or Image: prefix or enclosing brackets --> | alt = | caption = Enayat Khan with surbahar – in his day, the more prestigious instrument | birth_name = | birth_date = 1894<!-- {{Birth date and age|df=yes|YYYY|MM|DD}} or {{Birth-date and age|Month DD, YYYY}} --> | birth_place = North-Western Provinces, British India | death_date = 1938 (aged 43)<!-- {{Death date and age|df=yes|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} or {{Death-date and age|Month DD, YYYY|Month DD, YYYY}} (death date then birth date) --> | death_place = Calcutta | other_names = | known_for = | occupation = Sitar player, Classical music performer }} Ustad '''Enayat Khan''' ({{langx|ur| عنایت خان }}; (1894–1938) also known as '''Nath Singh''' was one of India's most influential sitar and surbahar players in the first decades of the 20th century. He was the father of Vilayat Khan, one of the top sitariyas (sitar players) of the postwar period.<ref name=Telegraph>{{cite news |title= Master of technique, creator of own style & sitar (obituary and profile of Vilayat Khan plus info on his teacher/father Enayat Khan)|author=Nilaksha Gupta |url= http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040315/asp/nation/story_3005855.asp|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20040501001436/http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040315/asp/nation/story_3005855.asp|url-status= dead|archive-date= 1 May 2004|newspaper=The Telegraph (India newspaper)|date=15 March 2004|access-date=28 December 2023}}</ref><ref name=SRA>{{cite web|url=http://www.itcsra.org/tribute.asp?id=20 |url-status=dead|title=Tribute to a Maestro - Inayat Khan|website=ITC Sangeet Research Academy website|archive-date=6 June 2012|access-date=28 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120606195630/http://www.itcsra.org/tribute.asp?id=20}}</ref>
==Early life== Enayat Khan was born in 1894 in the North-Western Provinces, British India into a family of musicians.{{ref|Rajput}} His father was the great sitar maestro Imdad Khan, who taught him the sitar and surbahar (bass sitar) in the family style, known as the Imdadkhani Gharana or Etawah Gharana (music school origin),<ref>{{cite news |title= Seven strings to the rainbow|author=Amrita Dasgupta|url= http://www.thehindu.com/arts/music/article495275.ece|newspaper= The Hindu newspaper|date=1 July 2010 |access-date=28 December 2023}}</ref> named after a small village near Agra called Etawah. He married Bashiran Begum, daughter of khyal singer Bande Hussain.<ref name=SwarGanga/>
==Performing career== He settled with his family in Calcutta, where, though he only lived to age 43, he did much pioneering work on the sitar. He developed the 'gayaki ang' further that his father Imdad Khan had taught him, in sitar playing. He gave a new dimension to the crafting and making of the sitar. For example, he standardized its physical dimensions and added the upper resonator gourd, which is very popular with today's players (though his own descendants have not been using it). His improvements in sitar playing made the sitar much more popular among mass audiences.<ref name=SRA/> <blockquote> "True, Vilayat Khan did not play the rapid-fire multi-stroke 'taan-toda' in which his father (Enayat Khan) excelled; but it can be conjectured with a fair amount of certainty that this was because he did not want to enter an area already developed to the hilt by Ustad Enayat Khan."<ref name=Telegraph/> </blockquote>
<blockquote> "No other instrumentalist in his time had such depth, mastery, knowledge, and the ability to organize and systemize the instrumental style."<ref name=SRA/> </blockquote>
In a place rapidly developing into an important North Indian centre of the arts, at a time when interest in national culture was strong, fueled by the struggle for independence, he brought sitar music out from its narrow connoisseur circles to new mass audiences. Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore was a musical collaborator and personal friend.<ref name=SRA/> Some of Enayat Khan's recordings have been released on CD, on the ''Great Gharanas: Imdadkhani'' compilation in RPG/EMI's ''Chairman's Choice'' series.<ref name=SwarGanga>[https://www.swarganga.org/artist_details.php?id=221 Profile of Enayat Khan on SwarGanga Music Foundation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241008192627/https://www.swarganga.org/artist_details.php?id=221 |date=8 October 2024 }} Retrieved 28 December 2023</ref>
==Death== Enayat Khan died young at age 43 in 1938,<ref name=SRA/> with four children. His two sons, noted sitar player Vilayat Khan (1928-2004)<ref>{{cite news |title= The master of sitar is no more|url= http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/mar/14ustad2.htm|newspaper= Rediff News|date=15 March 2004|accessdate=2 January 2019}}</ref> and Imrat,<ref name=SRA/> were trained in the Imdadkhani gharana style by other members of his extended family. Vilayat learned the sitar and Imrat the surbahar; both were to become very famous classical musicians later.<ref name=SRA/><ref name=SwarGanga/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Khan, Enayat}} Category:1890s births Category:1938 deaths Category:Etawah gharana Category:Hindustani musicians Category:20th-century Indian male classical singers Category:Indian sitar players Category:Pupils of Imdad Khan