Ustad Rashid Khan was the great grandson of Rampur-Sehaswan Gharana founder Enayat Hussain Khan. He did his lineage proud.

Gone too soon at 55, when some musicians reach a plateau, he could have continued to evolve because of his fertile mind. The coming together of voice, style, fluid taans, reposeful aalaap, made him a rare and complete musician. He lacked nothing in any area of his field and beyond, as he even ventured into film music.

I knew Rashid from my two years tenure at Sangeet Research Academy, where we were both 'scholars' – the term for scholarship holders – he under Ustad Nisar Hussain Khan and I under Pandita Girija Devi ji. SRA carries forward the guru-shishya parampara – the tradition of teacher and student relationships.

Even as a 'scholar', he was considered a maestro by the gurus at SRA – Pandit A. Kanan who represented Kirana Gharana's reposeful style and who I loved because he had a huge photograph of my Guru Begum Akhtar at the very entrance of his home; his wife Malavika Kanan, who said she never read any newspaper in the morning because all the bad news ruined her day; the stern-faced Ustad Nisar Hussain Khan, Rashid's mentor and guru, a man of few words and an uncompromising demeanour; Pandit Jagdish Prasad whose wife would complain unabashedly that he kept her awake all night; Pandit Sunil Bose and Pandit Ajoy Chakraborty who was then a scholar-musician.

Vijay Kichlu was at the helm of affairs as the director of SRA.

They jointly mentored and assessed each 'scholar' once a week. About Rashid, they would say amongst themselves, "Who are we to assess him? He's our equal, not less than us". They too were in awe of his brilliance.

He used to come over in the evenings to Girija Devi or Appa ji's house often, and would regale us with his mimicry. He used to do a hilarious Bharatnatyam bhav-dikhana act of a famous dancer and would have us all in splits.

Meanwhile, he had fallen madly in love with the woman who he eventually married, and was tortured by his guru 's command to marry his relative instead. At that time, I was his confidant. He would speak to me of his despair and complained bitterly that his guru would order him to run errands all morning when he wanted to do practice music instead. We shared grouses against our gurus and felt we were at their mercy. I found my guru unkind as I constantly compared her with my first guru, Begum Akhtar, who was extremely indulgent. Later, I loved Girija Devi too, as I am sure Rashid also came to love his guru.

Rashid and I met backstage before one of his concerts some years later and he chided me: "Look where I have reached...why aren't you better known?"

His music shone through his profound honesty, which was reflected in his gaze towards the world.

Here are four renditions by Rashid Khan chosen by Rekha Surya: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4.

Hindustani semi-classical singer Rekha Surya is the youngest disciple of Begum Akhtar and later trained under Girija Devi.

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