There is a certain level of frankness with which Amaan Ali Bangash — sarod maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan's elder son — opens up about his childhood that dispels any preconceived notion one might have had about him being pressured into following in his father's footsteps. That's because, when we view from the outside the parent-child relationship that such famous duos share, it's all too easy to discount the role of the mother. "It was a very relaxed atmosphere in the house, you know, because my mother's side of the family didn't have a musical background. So we had more of a natural upbringing. Also, I wasn't that close to my father's family. I mean, I know them and love them, but we weren't interacting every day. I was more in touch with my mother's relatives. So there was a balance, or normalcy, in our daily lives," he tells us.

But does that mean that Ustad ji took it upon himself to thrust the sarod in Amaan's hands from a young age? Not quite, because it's an instrument that is closely linked with their family tree and Amaan gravitated towards it in — for the lack of a better word — an organic manner. It came as naturally to him as brushing his teeth in the morning, he says. His morning riyaaz with a tabla player was part of his daily regime, like going to school was. "But slowly, as you get involved in it, it becomes a sort of addiction. You don't realise when it is that the music has started flowing in your system. Then suddenly one day, when you don't play, you start missing it, and the day feels incomplete. So, that's how it started for me," he says, ahead of a concert that's part of a festival called Aadi Anant, meant to showcase the guru-shishya tradition in Indian classical music, where he will perform alongside his father and brother, Ayaan.