Music has a way of absorbing departures, even of its most beloved custodians. Concert calendars fill up, other talented artistes come forward, and the world settles to a new rhythm. Loss is acknowledged, then folded into continuity. Yet the past year, marked by the absence of tabla giant Ustad Zakir Hussain, has shown that there are exceptions to this rule. A year after his sudden demise at 73, the limits of music’s ability to absorb grief have become apparent. Perhaps because Hussain was never only a brilliant artiste, never confined just to the stage, studio, or classroom. His presence extended beyond performances into something more elemental.
Through his career, Ustad Allah Rakha Qureshi’s eldest son — with his curly locks and disarming smile — stood in as the meaning of rhythm for India, a reference point through which audiences and artistes understood taal as a living force. It is rare for a musician rooted in the complex worlds of raga and riyaaz to be both popular with the masses and revered by purists. But Hussain occupied that space effortlessly. Between his beats lived stories: Radha scolding Krishna, the echo of Shiva’s damru and conch shell, horses galloping, his father’s formidable tukdas, and the new phrases he created with imagination and ease. There was delight in fluidity, a joy that made music transcend technique and arrive somewhere both deeply human and sublime.
A universe without Zakir Hussain is a quieter one. He brought something singular when he shared time with his audience — moulding it to his beats with generosity and humour, talent and knowledge, gently, playfully, as only he could.
