IN The Beatles’ scheme the pop quartet assigned to themselves, Ringo Starr kept the rhythm on the drums. But it was John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and less routinely George Harrison, whose melodies he provided foot-tapping rhythm to.

That was precisely the job of India’s tabla players of yore before Zakir Hussain lifted the art of the percussionist into a globally applauded orbit. The tabla’s links with Bhakti bhajans, Sikh shabads, and Sufi qawwalis were well-established in the 19th century. Glimpse, for example, the Sufi poet of the Naqshbandi silsila, Khwaja Mir Dard, from the period. He likened the beat cycle of Roopak taal to the mystical proclamation: “Be in the world, not of it.”

Many would see in it a bit of Albert Camus’ Outsider. “Khalq mein hain par juda sab khalq se rahte hain ham/Taal ki ginti se baahar jis tarah Roopak mein sam.” To know the essence of a complex tabla beat and frame it in a mystical verse tells us of how thoroughly informed Sufis, poets, and assorted intellectuals were with the intricacies of classical music.

Zakir, too, in his own way mingled the Sufi flavour of the tabla with Western ensembles. Did he therefore break any inviolable convention concerning the purity of classical music, as some claim he did? The debate may be a non sequitur in view of the fact that the induction of Western instruments into India’s music system started with Rabindranath Tagore or thereabouts, at least a century ago. Tagore used ensemble music and embraced the patently Western wind instrument harmonium. In southern India, too, the violin, for example, took its place first as an accompanying instrument and later acquired solo status – an achievement given the high-brow classical concerts. That and much more came with the European conquest of India.

From the exit gate, Indian instruments made forays into Western music. George Harrison, who learnt the sitar with Pandit Ravi Shankar, played it deftly in Norwegian Wood, a composition he based on the nighttime melody, the Raga Bageshri. Zakir added to the churning mix, but he was not alone in this. Coke Studio in Pakistan can be mentioned for giving the platform to some of the most intuitive and creative musicians of folk and classical lineage. They have truly embellished the aesthetic essence of Indian classical music — Pakistani classical music to them.

Listen to Ustad Naseer-ud-din Saami performing a riveting composition in Raga Adana, ‘Mundari mori,’ beautified by the ensemble of Western instruments. Or hear ustads Fareed Ayaz and Abu Mohammed singing the haunting ‘Kangana’ and ‘Mori bangri murak gai’ in Raga Malkauns. The entire Western orchestra melds easily with the Indian classical music format in many of Coke Studio’s large repertoire, the drummers in all probability taking a leaf from Zakir Hussain’s eclectic tabla.

Zakir Hussain’s fans, many of them in the West, were always entranced by his ability to produce kaleidoscopic cycles of rhythm on the tabla.

As for the Indian-or-Pakistani-music debate, it deserves a clarification, which came to me in the 1980s from the late Malika Pukhraj. Apparently, she got into big trouble with the Zia regime and was perhaps barred from the radio. All for explaining to me how the sargam uses Sanskrit and not Urdu alliterations for the seven notes: sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni. That was the time when Pakistani rulers pondered changing the name of the Indian Ocean to something less irritating.

Zakir’s death last week at 73 of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis was heartbreaking. It also brought back a devastating memory of another Indian hero succumbing to the mysterious illness, the inimitable cricket legend, Tiger Pataudi. Former Indian Test opener Kenia Jayantilal said Pataudi had something else in common with Zakir: music. “He carried the sitar and the tabla, which he could play proficiently, on tours abroad.”

Zakir Hussain’s fans, many of them in the West, were always entranced by his ability to produce kaleidoscopic cycles of rhythm on the tabla. With the right hand Zakir would prompt his fingers to dance on the treble-tonal drum, what Ravi Shankar called ‘the’ tabla. The drum with a larger playing surface, the bass, is simply the baya’n, or the left one. There are left-handed players, of course, who switch the drums accordingly.

My first face-to-face experience with a tabla concert was instructive. Sometime around early 1970, the venerated tabla maestro Ustad Ahmedjan Thirakwa was requested to play at the birthday party for Lav and Kush, my schoolmates at Lucknow’s La Martiniere College. They were the twin sons of Rani Ram Kumar Bhargava, heirs to Munshi Nawal Kishore, the renowned publisher of Urdu and Persian manuscripts who first put together the complete works of the outstanding 19th-century Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib.

In fact, Ghalib acknowledged that whoever was lucky enough to get their works published by Nawal Kishore reached the sky in fame. The difference this time around was that the veteran drummer we were going to hear as school kids was at the end of his illustrious career, approaching 80, and desperately looking for random assignments to make a living.

To regale the young revellers, as I remember it, the ustad played the sound of a steam engine taking off and slowing down on arrival at the train station. Everyone clapped and cheered the feat performed on the bass drum alone. Reflecting on the event years later, a performance that gave us immense joy, it seemed to sadden me greatly. For this, as one would learn, was the lot of far too many musicians who struggled in penury in the twilight of their lives. Zakir Hussain escaped the fate as did several other well-regarded musicians who moved to the West where they found fame and fortune.

The tabla has an edge over Western drums insofar as it can offer a gripping solo concert. Zakir was not the first to do it, but he was among the best. Difficult to imagine Ringo Starr cutting an album on his own, sans melody.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2024