Enayat Khan

Ustad Enayat Khan was one of India's most celebrated sitar and surbahar players in the first decades of the 20th century. He was born in Uttar Pradesh into a family of musicians. Before conversion into Islam, this family had been of Rajput lineage and in an informal continuation of that tradition, Enayat Khan also had Hindu name as 'Nath Singh'. His father was the great sitar maestro Imdad Khan, who taught him the sitar and surbahar in the family style, known as the Imdadkhani Gharana or Etawah Gharana named after a small village near Agra called Etawah. He was married to Basiran Bibi, daughter of khyal singer Bande Hussain Khan. He got settled in Calcutta, and later did pioneering work on the sitar. Enayat Khan died young, at the age of 46. He was father of famous Sitar player Vilayat Khan and Surbahar player Imrat khan, who were trained in Imdadkhani style, after his death, by other members of his extended family. Some of Enayat Khan's 78 RPM records were released by HMV in 1909 to 1912 & later they are published on cassettes & CDs under Chairman's Choice series in 1990's.