Classical vocalist Ustad Rashid Khan passed away in Kolkata on Tuesday afternoon, after over a month and a half in hospital following a stroke. He was 55.
The ustad was admitted to Peerless Hospital on November 22 with “bleeding in the brain”, said the doctor who was treating him. He breathed his last at 3.45pm.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee went to the hospital. She announced that Khan’s body will be kept at Rabindra Sadan from 9.30am to 1pm on Wednesday so admirers can pay their last respects.
“At 1pm, Kolkata police will give him a gun salute. I will be present there. The last rites will be performed following religious norms of the family,” the chief minister said.
Mamata said twice that she was having cold sweat (gaa-e kanta dichhe) to think that Khan was no more. “It is a great loss,” she said.
Chandramouli Bhattacharya, who treated Khan at Peerless Hospital, told waiting journalists that the vocalist was under conservative management by doctors. “Khan had suffered an intracerebral haemorrhage. A neurosurgical team examined Khan when he came to the hospital on November 22. They decided that he needed conservative management,” said Bhattacharya.
“Owing to his long stay in the hospital, he developed an infection that progressed rapidly. We had to put him on a ventilator on Tuesday morning. His blood pressure went down. He was given medicines to push up the blood pressure but he passed
away at 3.45pm,” Bhattacharya said, standing beside the chief minister and Khan’s family — wife, daughter and son.
Khan had a history of prostate cancer but his last illness — brain haemorrhage — was not linked to the cancer, said a source in the hospital.
“He was recovering well but had to be put on a ventilator on Tuesday morning for the first time since he arrived in the hospital,” said the source.
Khan was a doyen of classical music but he also produced many popular Bollywood gems. Like Aaoge Jab Tum O Sajna from the film Jab We Met, which brought him closer to several generations who were not exposed to Indian classical music.
Khan’s body was taken to Peace World, a mortuary in Topsia run by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC). The body will be taken to Rabindra Sadan in the morning.
Rashid Khan was trending on X after news of his death broke. Some people posted songs and videos of Khan rehearsing.
Among those who posted on X about his death were Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, songwriter Prasoon Joshi, filmmaker Hansal Mehta and Trinamul general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.
“Heartbreaking loss. Perhaps the greatest Hindustani classical vocalist of our generation is gone. Music maestro Ustad Rashid Khan passes away at the age of 55,” Mehta wrote on X.
Kharge referred to his ability to contemporise “classical music without losing its essence and purity”.
While announcing the plans to give Khan the gun salute, the chief minister said she was at Nabanna when she got a hint of what had happened. But she was given the news of the death on reaching the hospital. “He used to tell me that I was a mother to him. I so much wanted him to recover,” she said.