Zakir: Drumming Up A Storm

Zakir Drumming Up A Storm. Pic: Selina Nihalani

I'm so glad that cricket has Sachin Tendulkar. With his WMD- Willow Of Matchless Dimensions -he has taken a huge burden off  the nation's shoulders by setting enough world records to make it near impossible for anyone to surpass it sometime soon.   
Ustad Zakir Hussain can now play his tabla in peace.
Imagine what would have happened if Zakir had overruled the orders of his father and teacher Ustad  Allah Rakha "Abbaji" about not  playing cricket? I'm sure the game would have got its  master blaster, but the world of rhythm would have missed a beat.  

What Zakir does with the Tabla is what Tendulkar does with the game - redefine it within the existing discipline of the art. 

And the reason Abbaji kept  Zakir away from the game was the fear that the ball of leather weighing over 150g could injure the fingers of his prodigy son - who, as destiny would have it, will deal with a different kind of leather - stretched and mounted to make a Tabla.  

I read it somewhere that if you feel you've made it big in life, go to a seashore at high tide. The expanse of the blue waters and the mighty waves, will make you realize how small a speck you are in this wide world.
Better still, you can watch Ustad Zakir Hussain play at the annual "Abbaji" concert. It is only an odd chance that you won't come back humbled by the magnanimity of his music.
There is of course a pre-condition.
You have to give up yourself . Like a sick animal, leave it to the mercy of His will and his music.

Undoubtedly Ustad. Pic: Selina

Walk into the auditorium and put everything on stake - your ego, incompetency  or insecurities. Everything that is unwanted but comes bundled with the "life you wished for," stack all of it and make a big tower.
Then let him play. He would first sprinkle some water on the earth of your soul. You would realize how quickly you are soaking it all up.
There will be some very complicated maneuvers, some staccato kneading of the stretched nerves and some slapdash jerks.  
And then he would build a storm. Just like that, on a whim.
You will be  dizzy clutching the seat handles as he would ruthlessly dash and destroy everything in a mere dha ta dha ta dhaaaaa!!!. You would repent. Why did you put a brave front. It would have been better if you had surrendered.

Zakir, V Selvaganesh and Niladri. Pic: Selina

Mind you if you dare to think about the car you parked in the tow-away zone or the incomplete presentation or the Blackberry that is going mad whizzing on the vibrator mode burning your thighs.   The thunderstorm is raging and if u remain on the edge you would go unsteady. It is better that you start moving into the sanctum - the eye of the storm.The "Siyahi" - the dark hardened ink in the middle of the tabla is your abode and witness how nothing is left of the nothing in your life.  
So what would you call Zakir - the  successor of a 5000-year-old tradition of music? A tabla virtuoso?  Glamour incarnate with curly long locks and sharp features? And what would you remember when you go back?
(If you had not recorded him like those fancy cellphone-carrying, air-kissing SoBo crowd who sacrificed listening to him in the present to record and hear him in the future on a hazy screen).

Nothing. Absolutely Zilch!

Zakir, Sabir Khan on Sarangi, V Selvaganesh on Kanjira, Niladri on Sitar and the Kawa Band Members. Pic: Selina

You would of course remember that Zakir played the tabla and there was George Brooks on saxophone, Tanzanian singers and Uma Mahesh on Vocals, Niladri on the funky-looking postbox red sitar,  Ranjit Barot on the drums, Sridhar on the Mridang, Taufiq on the Djemba and also a baraat of Kawa  Brass Band from Rajasthan. 

You will remember the colours. 

But hues? 

He was filling up your goblet of life. Joy overflowed, you came on the edge of the seat, turned your hands red clapping and at the pinnacle of it all -  he pushed you! The rhythm stopped. 

The only sound you hear is the cooing in the ears like someone has boxed them hard or if you're aware enough, a fast-beating heart? 

Thou giveth, thou taketh away. 

You are outside the auditorium now. Clueless. Friends meet shake hands, hug each other and you overhear and may say words like "fuck, awesome, badhiya, outstanding, lovely, shandaar, jaandar, zabardast." Feeble all.  

How was it? You cannot cross the same river twice, can you? Can you play like him to show how it was? Do you have a benchmark that "it was like ..."  

Why even try?
If you had put everything on stake, you would have lost it.
All you may want to do is just help someone cross the road. Take them home like you reached yours. Cleansed Unwound.
"Don't try to be a master. Always be a student of life and you would do just fine" - Zakir Hussain on Feb 3, 2011