With his ponytail, he looks like a cool dude, but with the intensity of his music and the gravitas of his persona, you realise that Bahauddin Dagar is indeed the great musician he is acclaimed as, the one who took on a difficult task of carrying forward the mantle when his father, the legendary Rudra Veena maestro Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, passed away unexpectedly in 1990. At that time, Bahauddin was 20 years old.

His parents had had an inter-faith love marriage. His mother, Pramila, herself a musician of immense calibre, has played a very important role in his life. In the early years, from the age of seven, it was his mother who initiated him into music, as his father was often travelling. At that time, Bahauddin was like any other child, wanting to play all day long, and avoid exams at any cost. It was not music that attracted him, but painting. He would happily spend hours painting and even considered joining the JJ School of Art.

“As is the tradition of many beenkars of our Gharana, I too began with the sitar under my mother’s guidance, before going on to play the surbahar and then the rudra veena, once my father decided that I had acquired sufficient skills,” recalls Bahauddin. “Actually, teaching was minimal when I started learning under my father Zia Mohiuddin Dagar. It was just practice on a singular raga for four or five years. Unless he was satisfied, we never moved on. So I remember it as long hours of practice only. In that practice, there was an exploration of the raga taking place for me.”