Lounge
Zakir Hussain (1951-2024): Who will teach the tablas to laugh again?
Summary
Tabla maestro Zakir Hussain, who died at the age of 73 on Monday, infused his playing with an unparalleled sense of theatre, a storyteller using ‘bols’ as words
There are musicians, there are magicians, and then there is Ustad Zakir Hussain—a man with hands so incredible that he could, quite frankly, have been either, but chose, with infinite grace, to be both. To watch Hussain play the tabla was to believe in miracles: he seemed, always, in conversation with the instrument, his fingers squeezing out an unexpected question, the skin whispering secrets back into his palms. Zakir was an elemental force, one of those rare beings who seemed to be in perfect communion with an ancient, divine rhythm—a rhythm that belonged to the universe and yet was unmistakably all his own.
Also read: Dayanita Singh's photographs of Zakir Hussain
When I was 12, I started learning the tabla. In an effort to make me persist with the instrument—and, indeed, to convince me of its coolth—my mother took me to watch the Ustad. A few lessons old, I trained my bespectacled eyes on his tablas and thought I’ll learn something. His fingers, obviously were too blurry to teach me anything, except that playing an instrument literally is an act of play: he was teasing, cajoling the tablas, making them laugh, cry and argue back.
Born to the great Ustad Alla Rakha—who emphasized precision and the rigorous clarity of the Punjab gharana—Zakir infused his playing with an unparalleled sense of theatre, a storyteller using bols(tabla syllables) as words. Where Alla Rakha’s playing was the austere recitation of a classical epic, Zakir’s was a freewheeling, lyrical adventure: His dha dhin dhin dhadidn’t merely mark time; it sang, it scolded, it seduced.
Asking my own Guruji—a patient gentleman strained by my ham-fisted amateur efforts—how Zakir did something was immediately frowned upon. The Ustad worked in mysterious ways. I’ve spent a lifetime listening to and watching him, and I’ve never stopped marvelling.
I remain most enamoured by his control over the bass left tabla, the bayan.Most tabla players treat the bayan as an accent, a complement to the rapid-fire intricacy of the right treble tabla, the dayan. For Zakir, however, the bayan was equal conspirator, and he would coax from it a range of microtonal gamaks(inflections) that defied the physical properties of the skin.
His mukhdas were magic. Just when you thought you’d caught his rhythm, he’d insert a bold, idiosyncratic pause, making the silence itself as musical as the beat. Zakir had a near-supernatural mastery over tihais—the triple-repeated cadences most tabla players treat as punctuation. Zakir was different. His tihai would be less like mere mathematics and more like cinematic cliffhangers—resolved with impossible elegance. Abracadabra.
His collaborations were nothing short of revolutionary: who else could have played with John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra and made it seem as though the tabla always belonged in the electric chaos of fusion jazz? Zakir’s work with Shakti, a band formed alongside McLaughlin, was a masterclass in global music, a melding of traditions that felt organic and exhilarating.
Grammys sat on his shelf alongside the Padma Bhushan and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award. He played in concert halls that had never before hosted an Indian classical musician, and he played as if he belonged. Which, naturally, he did. Zakir Hussain was never confined to any one tradition; his tabla was too restless, too curious for that. And yet, no matter where he played or with whom, his music always carried a core of Indian-ness—a kind of rhythmic nostalgia that tied him back to his roots, no matter how global his collaborations became.
For those who strived and struggled to emulate him, he was both inspiration and enigma. How did he do it? How could he make the tabla sound like laughter, like rain, like thunder, like a hissed secret?
Now he is gone, and the loss feels unbearable. Zakir Hussain wasn’t just a musician; he was a cultural bridge, a rhythmic genius, a man who made the tabla sing like no one else ever could. Who will tickle the instruments now? Who will teach the tablas to laugh again?
Beyond the accolades, the innovation, beyond even the jaw-dropping virtuosity, what made Zakir Hussain extraordinary was the sheer joy he exuded. Watching him play was to witness someone in love not just with his instrument, but the act of creation. His eyes sparkled with mischief, his hands danced with abandon, his trademark mop of hair bobbed as if to teach your own. He made it look effortless, as the best sorcerers do, but you could sense the depth of his connection with his craft. There was a devotion there, a reverence, but also a lightness—a sense that music was both the most profound and the most playful thing in the universe.
From that first evening I watched him play, I remember standing near the stage—goaded by an overjoyed mother—to ask the Ustad for his autograph. She told him that I was learning, and he warned me that it’ll take time. This sounded oddly solemn coming from a man who was all charm and smiles on stage, and I felt vaguely disappointed that this absolute rockstar didn’t say anything more fun. Then I looked at the notepad in my hands and smiled. His flamboyant autograph was winking right at me, the Z and the H of his name shaped to mimic his signature instrument. Abracadabra.
Salaam, Ustad. Thank you for always giving us yet another flourish.
Raja Sen is a screenwriter and critic. He has co-written Chup, a film about killing critics, and is now creating an absurd comedy series. He posts @rajasen
Also read: V Selvaganesh on being part of Shakti
