Zakir Hussain obit: The maestro who made the tabla sing and do all the talking

To call Zakir (which means ‘the one who remembers’ or the one who does zikr, a form of devotion involving rhythmically repeating Allah’s name or a mantra-like chant) a ‘tabla player’ feels like calling Rumi a ‘poet’ or Michelangelo a ‘sculptor.’ It’s not incorrect, but it’s woefully inadequate. Zakir Hussain was a creator, a listener, and a world-builder. He was an ambassador of rhythm, a man who spoke in taal, the musical measure and the ancient language of time.

His collaborations with jazz, rock, and global musicians were less ‘fusion’ and more sama, a spiritual communion where differences dissolved. His fingers moved at a speed that felt otherworldly, but the miracle was never speed; it was clarity, it was resonance, it was haal (spiritual ecstasy). Every stroke of his hand was articulate, as if each beat had a purpose beyond sound.

The child prodigy

Born in 1951 in Mumbai, Zakir Hussain was fated for greatness — or so it seemed. His father, Ustad Alla Rakha of the Punjab gharana, was already a legendary figure in the world of Indian classical music, known for his long-standing partnership with Pandit Ravi Shankar. But Zakir was never content to remain in his father’s shadow. By the age of 7, he was being called a child prodigy, though that word barely conveys the depth of his talent.

Also read: India’s very own who yet belonged to the world: Zakir Hussain gave the tabla a new identity

To watch him perform as a boy was to witness something uncanny. His hands, still childlike in size, moved across the tabla with the confidence of a man who had lived several lifetimes. Unlike other classical musicians groomed to follow tradition, Zakir had an appetite for the new. The tabla, in his hands, was not a relic of the past but a portal to the future.

By 12, he was performing on international stages. By 18, he was already considered a master. But he never approached music with the solemnity or snootiness of a master. He had too much joy, too much curiosity, too much vivace. His brilliance lay in treating music as a living thing — wild, playful, and alive.

From Shakti to the global call of the tabla

Zakir Hussain’s music career could have been one long love letter to classical Hindustani music, and no one would have blamed him. But he had other plans. In the early 1970s, he met guitarist John McLaughlin, and together they formed Shakti, a band that fused jazz and Indian classical music, and reinvented both. With violinist L. Shankar and ghatam virtuoso T.H. ‘Vikku’ Vinayakram, Shakti created a sound that wasn’t ‘East meets West’ — it was the East, West, and beyond.

Their music was intense, electric, and deeply meditative. No one had heard anything like it before. Shakti blended styles and created a third language. It wasn’t ‘crossover music’ — it was something sui generis, something unnameable. The audience didn’t know what to expect. People came for jazz and left having witnessed a cyclone. McLaughlin’s blistering guitar and Zakir’s tabla had conversations, fights, reconciliations. The tabla was an accompaniment and a protagonist.

In 1983, Zakir starred as the head of an Indian household in Merchant Ivory’s film, Heat and Dust, based on Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s novel of the same name. He also composed music for the film, along with Richard Robbins, and was nominated for an award at the Cannes Film Festival. A year later, he started his own percussion ensemble, the Zakir Hussain Rhythm Experience.

Zakir Hussain became the face of the 1988 Taj Mahal Tea campaign, and immortalised the phrase ‘Wah Taj!’ — a line so catchy it became shorthand for excellence in everyday life. The 33-second commercial captured him mid-riyaaz, his fingers gliding over the tabla, until a sip of tea punctuated the performance. The voiceover, delivered with gravitas by Harish Bhimani, lauded him with “Wah Ustad, wah!” — to which Hussain, in his inimitable style, quipped, “Arre huzoor, wah Taj boliye!” The same year, Hussain’s silhouette graced television screens again, this time alongside his father for the national integration anthem “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara.” With tabla and pride in hand, he embodied the unity the song preached. These moments etched him not just into the annals of music but into the shared memory of a nation.

In 1990, he became one of the youngest recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi award, and in 1996 he was part of the team that composed music for the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in Atlanta. His 1992 world music album with the rock band Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, Planet Drum, earned him his first Grammy.

Precision, playfulness, and poetry

Zakir Hussain’s style was a confluence of precision and playfulness, the kind that made the tabla not just an instrument but the conduit to tell a story. Unlike many classical musicians who carried the gravitas of tradition like a weight on their shoulders, Zakir approached his craft with an impish charm. His hands moved with a dancer’s fluidity, his fingers striking and sliding over the tabla’s surface, creating rhythms that felt both ancient and brand new. Each beat had an emotional register — a whisper, a chuckle, a gasp — as if the tabla itself had learned to speak. His style had a certain flamboyance and grace. Every syllable of the bol (the spoken rhythmic pattern) could be heard distinctly, like the enunciation of a master orator. His ability to switch from ferocity to tenderness within the span of a few seconds was unparalleled, a reflection of his belief that rhythm is as much about silence as it is about sound.

Hussain’s aesthetic was rooted in tradition but never confined by it. He could play a peshkar (introductory improvisation, a way for tabla players to warm up during solo performances) with the rigour of a purist and then, in the same breath, transform into an avant-garde innovator. His collaborations across genres — from jazz with John McLaughlin to world music with Béla Fleck and Yo-Yo Ma — were not mere fusions but dialogues. He never overpowered his collaborators; he listened, responded, and adapted. This humility, combined with his technical brilliance, made him a rare musician who could create sama (spiritual harmony) in every performance. His tabla marked time, and also warped it. There was an elasticity to his playing — beats stretched, contracted, and hovered in mid-air before landing with surgical precision. It was this ability to control not just rhythm but time itself that elevated him from a great player to an unforgettable icon.

Also read: A father figure for students, Zakir Hussain liked jokes, had no star tantrums

After Shakti, Zakir’s partnerships grew bolder and wilder. With Grammy-winning banjo player Béla Fleck and bassist Edgar Meyer, he created The Melody of Rhythm (2009), an album that brought bluegrass, Indian classical, and jazz into a single unbroken thread. His work with the Silk Road Ensemble — alongside cello maestro Yo-Yo Ma — became a masterclass in how to listen to one another across cultures. His collaborations became an instrument to converse with artistes across cultures and mediums.

The three Grammys of 2024: A final ovation

Even in the last year of his life, Zakir Hussain was still making history. In February 2024, he won three Grammy Awards in a single night, a feat that no Indian musician had ever achieved. It was his final crescendo, a triumphant roar from a man who had spent his life listening. Hussain and flautist Rakesh Chaurasia won the award in the Best Global Music Performance for their song Pashto; it also featured Fleck and Meyer. Shakti won the Best Global Music Album for This Moment, and Husssain received the third award in the best contemporary instrumental album category for As We Speak, along with Chaurasia, Fleck and Meyer. These weren’t ‘lifetime achievement’ awards, handed out to honour his past. They were awards for now. Even in his final year, Zakir Hussain was still ahead of the world.

A multi-hyphenate, Zakir appeared in films, scored soundtracks, and played on countless movie scores. He acted in The Perfect Murder (1988), and composed the background scores for Heat and Dust and Mr. and Mrs. Iyer (2002). His music wasn’t just something you listened to; it was something you felt in the marrow of a story. When his tabla played in a film, you didn’t just hear a scene; you experienced it. But for all his fame, Zakir remained disarmingly humble. Audiences remember his mischievous smile during performances, his visible delight at the perfection of a beat landing just right. His stage presence was warm, never distant. He was a man with gifts that could have made him untouchable, but he chose to remain approachable.

The final beat and an eternal dialogue

The tabla is not an easy instrument to master. It requires immense patience and thahrao (composure). Zakir Hussain had all of that, but he had something else too — vision. He saw the tabla as more than an instrument. It was his voice. Every musician eventually confronts the silence of mortality. For Zakir Hussain, that silence will not be an absence but an echo. His mortal body, his fingers are gone, but his music is not. His recordings will live on, but so will the rhythms he inspired in others. Percussionists around the world now approach their instruments differently because of him. They do not see ‘the beat’ as the start of the music; they see it as the music itself.

The accolades will be remembered: the Padma Shri, the Padma Bhushan, and the Padma Vibhushan; the National Heritage Fellowship from the United States; the four Grammys (three in 2024 alone). But more enduring than any of these is the knowledge that Zakir Hussain changed the way people hear. He changed the way people listen. In Indian classical music, a tabla solo can last hours. The performer explores the possibilities of rhythm, using beat cycles called taal as a map for improvisation. Zakir Hussain’s life, in many ways, followed this same form. He stayed within the world of classical music, but he was never bound by it. Every project was an improvisation, a ‘lehra’ — a fixed melodic line based on a particular raga and composed in a specific taal that guides the rhythm.

The end of a tabla solo is marked by a ‘tihaai’ — a climactic phrase repeated three times to signal closure. Zakir Hussain’s life had its ‘tihaai’ moment, too. Three Grammys in a single year. Three global statements. Three beats. The music has stopped, but the vibration remains. The great trick of rhythm is that, long after the beat has ended, you still hear it inside you. It lives on, even in silence. Zakir Hussain's silence will be like that: not an ending, but an afterglow. He is gone, but listen closely. You’ll still hear him: Dha dhin dhin dha, dha dhin dhin dha, dha dhin dhin dha. This time, it’s the world that must keep the beat.