This book is a dream come true for all collectors of Indian Classical Music recordings. The authors, sons of Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, the Sarod Maestro, have narrated many delightful anecdotes of the 50 Maestros, having access to most of them as fellow musicians. Also they have noted many subtle points which can be noticed only by professional musicians, like the strange use of Shuddha Nishad (which does not figure in the Raga) in the tanpura in Ustad Amir Khan's recording of Raga Darbari Kanada.
Whereas there are many books listing the great recordings of Western Classical Music, there were not many comparable books on Indian Classical Music, excepting Chetan Karnani's "Listening to Hindusthani Music", "Nad" by Sandeep Bagchee & "A Rasika's journey through Hindusthani Music" by Rajiv Nair, where some recordings are mentioned "en passant", as it were. This book fills the gap, with the MP-3 CD supplied with the book giving many of the tracks mentioned in the book, being like the icing on the cake. As the authors are Hindusthani musicians, it is probably natural that only a handful of Karnatic musicians get a mention.
It may appear on first sight that widespread dissemination in electronic media has damaged the cause of culture by making it too accessible to probably undeserving hands. But in reality, it has only separated the grain from the chaff, as it were, of the Connoisseurs from the Philistines.
Even though the use of Kindle has brought books at negligible cost to readers, the discerning bibliophiles still prefer to possess & read beautiful copies (suited to their purse) of excellent books, whose appearance do justice to their contents.
Similarly, the availability of almost all music on-line, has only spurred the audiophiles to use it to find out their tastes & acquire the music of their choice either in Vinyl or CD & play it on as high-end equipment as they can afford.
This also supports the Hindu sensibility that Literature & Music are Divine, being the symbol of Goddess Saraswathi & hence should not be trivialised but treated with the utmost respect, by being bought by paying an adequate price & read or listened to with the fullest attention.
