In The Picture: Zakir Hussain

Ustad Zakir Hussain doesn't need to introduce himself, but he does so anyway. "Hi, I'm Zakir," he tells the journalists thronging his Napean Sea Road residence. It's the run-up to the 15th edition of the 'Homage To Abbaji' concert organised annually to celebrate the legacy of his late father, Ustad Alla Rakha Khan.

The 15th barsi (anniversary), Hussain says, will stand out from its predecessors. "In a first, the history of the Punjab gharana and our family tree will be showcased by musicologist Sushil Kumar Jain. And Ranjit Barot will play a Kathak repertoire on drums in tribute to the late Sitara Devi," he outlines. Also on the anvil is a musical paen to someone he calls "truly special" — late Upalappu 'Mandolin' Srinivas, who'd performed with Hussain for previous barsis. "I get angry each time I think about his death. It still bothers me," he says.

Each year, prior to the Abbaji concert, Hussain is asked what it was like to have a luminary like Ustad Alla Rakha Khan for a father. But few know that Khan was as much a fabulous cook as he was a great tabla virtuoso. "Most musicians are decent cooks. The reason being that they travel a lot and need to fend for themselves. It was the same with abba. He'd insist on cooking so often that I barely saw my mother in the kitchen," shares Hussain, who can whip up a mean kheema and lamb.

Harking back to his childhood days in a Mahim mohalla, the tabla ace talks about his mother, Bavi Begum. She was the disciplinarian to Ustad Alla Rakha Khan's free spirit, he reveals — the one who insisted that a young Hussain study in an English medium school. "It was sometimes difficult being in an English school because my parents didn't speak the language, so I had no one to practice with back at home. That's what made me a voracious reader," he shares.

But English never got in the way of Ustad Alla Rakha Khan's zeal to introduce his son to Western music. On his trips abroad, he'd buy LPs and cassettes of artists like Count Basie, The Doors and The Rolling Stones. "I was the first to have a boombox in Mahim," laughs Hussain. "And I'd walk around a mohalla where people had transistors. While they'd play film songs, I'd play stuff like (The Doors') 'Light My Fire'. In that sense, I was the strange child in my neighbourhood."

Ask Hussain about gender barriers in Indian percussion music, and he has insightful things to say. "Many girls are playing instruments like the ghatam now. I'm really glad. Women have a special sensitivity in playing instruments. When a man gets on the tabla, he wants to whack it. But a woman wants to establish a relationship with an instrument and know it on many levels. That's how it should be," says Hussain, before signing off with an anecdote:

"Once (tabla maestro) Kishan Maharaj was going on stage, and someone said 'Good luck Panditji!' To which he replied, 'We'll see what the instrument wants to say today.' That was such a profound statement. It's what music is all about."

'Homage to Abbaji' will kick off on February 3 at Shanmukhananda Hall, Sion.