BySiddhi Jain

September 18, 2019 (IANSlife) For Ustad Zakir Hussain, 67, his tabla is his “greatest toy”. “It's my friend, lover, sister, brother, it's everything. And our relationship has only deepened with years,” says the virtuoso. The Padma Bhushan recipient says he was told that he first played his fingers on a cooking pan as a three-year-old. “So my tabla and I have been mates since I was a baby. This is not work for me, it's play, it's a lot of fun,” Hussain told IANS.

His father Ustad Alla Rakha was his first guru, a photograph of whom Hussain still carries around in his cellphone. "I used to watch my dad, who used to be a very serious man even at 70. But he'd get on on the stage and suddenly a smile would appear on his face, and he would look like a little kid and have an absolutely fabulous time," he said.

The percussionist said he always wanted to have that easy relationship a with his tabla, and with his art form. "I think we're arriving there," Hussain chuckled.

But visibility remains a necessary evil. “One can play music until the cows come home, but one doesn't get enough audience unless they're visible,” he lamented.

Hussain got that visibility early on. After an acting stint in Merchant Ivory's “Heat & Dust” brought him into spotlight, it was Taj Mahal Tea's "Wah Taj" ad campaign that really made him a household name. The curly hair, infectious smile... Hussain was a favourite of youngsters. And it also helped boost to the popularity of tabla.

"There's facial recognition, the 'ah, it's him!' factor. That has helped a lot. What happens is, once you get people excited to come and see you play, and when they get to come after they've seen a 30-second commercial, then it's up to you to turn it around and make them part of your fan club," he explained.

Building on his international appeal, Hussain has since gone on to do many historic collaborations. He founded fusion group Shakti with guitarist John McLaughlin and violinist L. Shankar. Twenty years later, he collaborated on Remember Shakti with musicians U. Srinivas, TV Selvaganesh and singer Shankar Mahadevan. He also released albums Planet Drum with Mickey Hart and Sangam with Charles Lloyd and Eric Harland. His Global Drum Project won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album in 2009. His joint projects still haven't stopped.

“I just try to reinvent myself. I have to. I'm trying to find a new language to tell the same stories. The story doesn't change, we're playing the same stuff that we've been playing for 300 years. But it is how you tell it, and the way it resonates with the audience,"said the Ustad.

But Hussain wears his fame lightly. He calls himself a “regular musician” dedicated to his "first and last love" -- tabla. He said he has been lucky that a lot of his audiences have stayed, and formed part of a support group over decades.

He also credits his popularity to tabla, which, he said, is "one of the greatest strengths of the Indian music". "Today the hottest selling instrument globally is the tabla and there are more incredible players of tabla than any other instrument in the world. So it's arrived somewhere and people are having a great time with it. You can just bang away your frustrations!” said Hussain.

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Siddhi Jain can be contacted at siddhi.j@ians.in

Editing by Ritu Pandey and N. Lothungbeni Humtsoe