Nawab Wazad Ali Shah of Lucknow was primarily a music enthusiast and a patron of fine arts. He had no interest in the state administration and his minister (who was a well-known rabab player) was totally worthless as a politician. He often invited the greatest dancers and musicians of that era to his court in Lucknow and arranged for night-long concerts. A man of remarkable proficiency in vocal music and dance, Wazed Ali squandered all his money on concerts and performances and dissipated his coffers very soon. When General Outram, the British governor general at that time came to know about this extravagant man, he invaded Lucknow with his army, captured the city and overthrew Wazed Ali. Subsequently he was sent to Bengal where he was given an estate with a number of attendants and bodyguards on the bank of river Hoogly.

 

One evening Wazed Ali was enjoying a trip across river Hoogly in his barge. He was reclining on his cushion and sipping wine from a diamond studded goblet while a songstress (baiji) who sat on the other side of the boat, was singing and entertaining him. Suddenly he was enraptured  by the tone of a wind instrument which came from a temple, located at a distance. The player of the instrument was playing an evening raga with great expertise. The nawab was so fascinated by the unseen player’s recital that he asked his attendants to summon him to his court the next day.

 

The next morning, when Wazed Ali sat in his palace hall, flanked by his servants and bodyguards, a middle aged Bengali Brahmin accompanied by some of his attendants timidly appeared in front of him and saluted him in the traditional Hindu style. The brahmin was dressed in white clothes and had a brass pipe in his right hand. When the nawab wanted to see the instrument, the brahmin humbly handed it over to him. After a careful scrutiny of the instrument the nawab said, “Yeh toh Shehnai hai!” ( “This  is  a shehnai!”) The Brahmin (who was the priest of the temple on the river bank ) gently shook his head and told him that the instrument was called, “NYASTARONGO!!” Thereafter at Wazed Ali’s request to demonstrate the art of playing it, the brahmin took the brass pipe in his hands and instead of blowing it with this mouth, he held it vertically under his right jaw, pressed it with his chin and began to play it like a flute, with laudable skill. Within the first ten minutes of his recital, the nawab came down from the altar where he was sitting, embraced the brahmin with a cordial smile on his face, and publicly announced that the brahmin was one of the greatest virtuessi he had ever seen and that he would engage him as his court musician from that very day.

 

Thereafter, the brahmin became a court musician at the nawab’s palace with a monthly salary of one thousand rupees.