It was a new gharaana of music which had its roots in the Bhindi Bazar gharaana, which flourished in Bombay in the first half of the twentieth century. The first popular master of the new gharaana was Ustad Shahmir Khan, father of Panditji’s venerated guru Ustad Amir Khan Saheb. The latter carried the legacy of the Indore gharaana to great heights and it was continued by Pandit Amarnath, who added almost 200 compositions to the repertoire of the gharaana.
At the time of Panditji’s death, music critic Dr. Raghava Menon had written in his obituary in The Times of India: Two of four genius musicians of the twentieth century….Indore gharaana’s highest summit was Ustad Amir Khan. Pandit Amarnath was its immutable name, his music was the most mathematical and intellectual of his time.
The word laya has come from leen, means merged, be one with. Continuous and regular intervals are the expression of laya.