Ustad, on and off the stage

An angelic presence has gone from our lives and I am grappling with that loss.

- Pt Hariprasad Chaurasia

Zakir was the gentlest of souls, a beacon of warmth for everyone he encountered—be they stalwarts such as Pt Ravi Shankar, Shivji (Pt Shiv Kumar Sharma), myself, or be they younger artistes, students, people handling lights, sound at the concerts or those serving chai—he treated everyone with the same openness and respect.

When I first heard of his ill health, I told myself, "He's in the US, surrounded by state-of-the-art health care and the best doctors, surely he'll pull through; he has to..."

Even now, though it's been some hours since his death, a part of me expects to hear his ringing laughter any moment, as if he will call to lighten the heaviness in my chest.

Elevating tabla-playing to new heights People say Zakir carried forward the legacy of his illustrious father, Ustad Alla Rakha Khan saab but I believe he did much more than that—he elevated tabla-playing to heights never scaled before. Even his abba once told me, with understandable pride: "Zakir has taken the tabla to heights I could have only dreamed of, he mesmerises even those who have little knowledge of music. I may have taught him but his signature style is uniquely his own. I marvel at how audiences—children, elders, everyone—seem to hang onto every beat."

I could only agree with this assessment. Zakir's playing was not just about technique or the classical paradigm but also about making something deeply pure and divine accessible to one and all. He could, for instance, riff on the galloping of a horse, the revving of a motorbike or the sound of a kid bouncing a ball on concrete but just when he had hooked the audiences in, he would segue into the classical.