Ballu Khan was a close cousin of Afaq Hussain, and a marvelous tabla player of the Lucknow gharana. However, he himself always insisted that what distinguished him was his separate heritage from the Kothiwal gharana. "Kothiwal" described the lineage of Modhu and Zahid Khan, two brothers who hailed from the Punjab but who migrated to Lucknow around 1830 directly from Jhajjar, just west of Delhi, where they had been in court service. It was this Modhu Khan who is said to have taught Ram Sahai, the apical figure of the Benares tabla gharana. Interestingly, the tabla players of the Kothiwal lineage all became professional sarangi players around 1900. (See my book, The Tabla of Lucknow, 1998: 81, for details.) Ballu Khan learned from Chuttan Khan of the Lucknow gharana (see the section "About the Lucknow tabla gharana..."). According to him, Chuttan Khan in turn had learned some tabla from members of the Kothiwal tradition, and thus Ballu Khan had actually inherited his family's distinctive repertoire and style. In this clip Ballu Khan plays an old Lucknow qaida, then turns it into a rela (which, in the Lucknow tradition, fills in the existing pattern with rapid bols). Ballu Khan maintained a strong practice schedule his whole life, and was a quick and technically masterful player.