NMK: You said you had many friends when you were growing up in Mahim. Do you make friends easily?
ZH: As a young man, I spent so much time with my father and was so taken up by music that nothing else really mattered. I was lucky to have travelled the world, and had the opportunity of learning so many things.
As far as my friends go, I still meet some of my school chums from the Mahim days. I have occasionally visited my old school. Most of the teachers were around till about twelve years ago and now they are gone. I have a few friendships that have lasted for over forty years. Those whom I am proud to call friends are in it for the long haul. There’s Mickey Hart, Shivkumarji, Hariprasadji and John McLaughlin. They are not just music colleagues, but are more like family. We spend time together doing stuff—let’s go to a movie, let’s go for a drive, let’s have some chaat.
There are also lots of friendships that have fallen apart because of disagreements and disappointments: ‘Oh, you did not help me, or support me when I said something, you just stood by.’ Sometimes other problems have occurred, and I realized it was unfair of me to try moulding people. I’ve learned to respect the fact that people think differently than I do.
NMK: What about Twitter and Facebook?
ZH: I’m bad with Facebook. I enjoy tweeting. It’s the quickest way to keep in touch, with just one line. But Twitter is a poor substitute for a one-on-one personal relationship. It’s just strumming the strings and keeping the chord humming.
I tweet my friends and the people that I work with like John McLaughlin, Shivkumar Sharmaji, Rahul Bose, the drummers Antonio Sanchez, Eric Harland, and the saxophone player Charles Lloyd. Tweeting is a way of knowing what’s going on in their lives and vice versa. Sumantra Ghosal is a friend but I don’t see him every day. Niladri Kumar and Rakesh Chaurasia are very dear to me, but I don’t see them every day. You’re a friend, but I don’t see you every day. [laughs]
NMK: Have you found that you’ve lost friends because they’ve wanted you to help them get a recording contract or a concert? Because you’re in a position of some influence and power in the music world.
ZH: Yes, that has happened. There have been worse situations than that where I’ve had to be honest and say, ‘No, musically you don’t have it.’ You look for those hands that you think a person must have in order to get through the first gate, you look for that spark or depth—and if you don’t see that spark, you have to tell them. It’s tough but you must tell them. Some people take it well, others don’t. The ones who take it well are still friends, but I also meet the people who did not take it well.
NMK: I suppose that’s one of the downsides of being influential.
You grew up among famous people. What was that like?
ZH: I suppose when you are part of a social circle it is difficult to imagine how others perceive the people within that circle. The people that my father and I knew were just simple human beings to us, even though they were the leading names in music. I grew up sitting on the laps of many talented people in India. They were uncles and aunts, Dadaji and Nanaji to me. Today it is difficult to forget that past relationship and think of them as gods. From the very start, they were special to me. I was a toddler and sitting in Asha Bhosleji’s lap as my father rehearsed a song with her. She reminded me about it when we met recently. I am still close to Ashaji. She drops in or asks me over when she’s cooking a meal. By the way, she’s a terrific cook.
NMK: Back in the 1960s and ’70s, the world of music in the West was associated with drugs and alcohol. How did you deal with it?
ZH: In the early years, I was living on a ranch owned by the Grateful Dead, and they were experimenting with various stimulants, but I was just involved with music and not the whole scene. There were these guys called Owsley and Wavy Gravy and during a concert, they would give out stuff to the audience. Wavy Gravy—now that’s a name! He’s still around. I think he’s in his eighties.
NMK: Do you think drugs and alcohol are less prevalent in the music world now?
ZH: Are you kidding? Didn’t somebody die of an overdose not long ago? Amy Winehouse? Natalie Cole died before her time because her body had suffered from substance abuse.
NMK: And in India? I think it was more about alcohol.
ZH: When I was about nine years old, my father would take me with him to these addas in Bombay. I would drink Coca-Cola, and sit there while these great musicians drank and talked music. I learned a lot about music during those evenings and I learned how to interact with musicians by watching them at the adda.
NMK: An adda can mean a place where people gather to talk. Can you explain the addas you are talking about? I think you mean the addas that opened in the 1950s during prohibition.
ZH: Yes. In Bombay and in other Indian cities you had to have a drinking permit to buy liquor and you could get one if you paid someone because you were rich, or you were a foreigner. Foreigners were allowed to buy alcohol. Otherwise, alcohol was prohibited and so people would go to these ‘addas’ to drink. They were places hidden away in narrow back lanes where moonshine was sold—speakeasies of sorts. By and large, Catholic families ran these addas and that’s why some were called ‘Aunty’s adda’.
Abba never drank in the day. Sometimes when he and his friends had finished recording or playing a concert, they would go in a group to a place in Mahim to drink and to eat fried fish. There was also a place in Khar Danda where they would spend the evening. Linking Road did not exist back then and for the most part it was a mosquito-infested marshland.
After the first drink or two, the mood would be just right. The film composer Madan Mohanji would sing a song that he had recorded earlier that day, and everybody would praise or critique it. The composer/vocalist Laxman Prasad Jaipurwaleji would also sing and say: ‘I just made this up, it’s based on such and such raga.’
The musicians would speak of their work in progress and there was an incredible sense of freedom that dominated the evening. Suddenly these quiet, reserved ustads became free human beings with no inhibitions. Drinking relaxed everyone. Sometimes Abba would make me recite rhythms (bols) that he had taught me. I would be on display and I was happy. If I did something right, an extra bottle of Coca-Cola and another fish fry would be my reward.
But when the evening would drag into the early hours, and there was more and more merriment, I would get sleepy and fed up. I was a child and impressionable, and as a result it put me off drinking and smoking. I was never drawn to either. But if someone were to offer me a glass of a terrific Barolo, I’d happily accept. [both smile]
NMK: You once said you’ve had your share of struggles. What was your greatest struggle?
ZH: I could be bursting the bubble of an incredible myth that music is built around when I tell my students: ‘We don’t know what existed 150 years ago, because there are no recordings or documentation. So just stick to what’s in front of you, and don’t get bent out of shape.’
Many people get awestruck by the task of playing a simple rhythm. Maybe it’s because they have been told it’s an uphill struggle. I have seen maestros totally dampen a student’s excitement by saying: ‘You have to practise eighteen hours a day for twenty years before you can sing a correct note.’ Who would want to get involved with something like that in this day and age? It’s ironic that the maestro would even say such a thing because many ustads were themselves playing or singing professionally as teenagers. Why say you need twenty years to sing a correct note? It doesn’t make sense. Contradictions are everywhere.
NMK: Are there many books on Indian classical music that are considered key?
ZH: We have a very interesting situation in north Indian classical music—our rulebook was written by a man called V.N. Bhatkhande. He spoke about 10 parent ragas known as thaats. So, you can say that such-and-such raga belongs to Kalyan thaat, or another belongs to Bhairav thaat. Bhatkhande laid it all out—this is a morning raga, this is an afternoon raga. This raga has the same notes as the morning raga, but the way
you play makes it an evening raga. Bhatkhande was the one who created this system of classification. It’s not a perfect system, but it has its uses.
Purists liked the idea of adhering to Bhatkhande’s rulebook, but what is interesting is that he was not a performing musician himself. He was educated whilst most musicians were not. I think the masters were referring to Bhatkhande’s book when they said: ‘Kitaab ka gaana bajana ek cheez hai, aur stage ka gaana bajana aur cheez hai’ [Performance by the book is one thing, performing on the stage is another]. It suggests being an academic performer is one thing but being a performer-performer is something else.
In a subtle way, the masters were possibly hinting that his words were theoretical and applying that theory to performance could be tricky to negotiate. The discussion is still on, but there are those who say: ‘Oh, this raga is not being sung properly because according to Bhatkhande’s book, it’s supposed to be this way.’ And the maestro will say: ‘Come on, really? What happens to spontaneity? What happens to emotional content?’
NMK: I was very happy to have the opportunity of observing you teach—or rather hearing you mentor—about forty tabla players at the South Bank in London. You started by quoting a comment by Miles Davis: ‘Less is more.’
ZH: ‘Less is more.’ I was telling the students that the road to tabla nirvana is not strewn with five million compositions. I have played the same few qaidas all my life—a qaida is a composition with a pre-composed theme. I have not done anything vastly different. I know other qaidas, but this is what I am comfortable with.
NMK: When I hear you play, there is such speed and precision and inventiveness that I cannot bring my head around to thinking that you’re playing only a few qaidas.
ZH: That’s the whole point. You can tell the same story in five million ways and you do. It’s like language, everybody speaks it differently and there are umpteen ways of expressing a thought.
I play these four or five things reasonably well and people like them, but it’s up to me to inject a little bit of mystery when playing so that it does not appear to be the same old thing. All of us tabla players, including myself, rely on a stock set of qaidas, relas, and a few chakradars, and on special occasions, unveiling a new qaida or chakradar, either recently discovered from an ancient repertoire, or newly composed—this is the modus operandi throughout our lives.
The same is true of Ahmedjaan Thirakwa Khansahib, Kishan Maharajji, Samta Prasadji or Kanthe Maharajji. If you listen to their records, the same elements reappear. They are not playing five hundred of this and a thousand of that. This is not a criticism, and it is not saying that we do not know more than what we play. It is when we’re on stage that we must play what we do best—play the stuff that defines us.
Vilayat Khansahib and Ravi Shankarji were known for certain ragas; the special way that Kumar Gandharvaji sang is what you wanted to hear and so he would oblige. When you listen to Anindo Bhai [Chatterjee] or Swapan Bhai [Chaudhuri], you want to hear them play the familiar—it is the telling that is slightly different each time.
We tend to talk about Indian classical music as something that is spontaneous and that we improvise and create from scratch. I think we can safely abandon that idea. We don’t, we play the tried and tested.
NMK: In that case, how can students avoid being formulaic and repetitive?
ZH: What I mean is that one day you’ll master what you initially did not. Technically there are certain things on the tabla that I cannot do, and other tabla players can. It’s just the way my hands are shaped. I’m not going to totally avoid those things, but I’ll present them in a way that does not look as though I’m floundering.
I was explaining to the students at South Bank that it is important to build their performance around what they do best. You can move those musical phrases around, you can space them out differently, or leave them as they are—you can create many variations. And if you’re trying to play something that you like, but can’t, put it aside and someday you will play it.
When a student is going to give a first public performance I always ask him or her: ‘Are you going to play something you like or what you can play well?’ It’s a decision a young musician has to make. Initially at least you should appear to be someone who has a handle on your ability at that moment in time. It doesn’t mean you won’t grow. All it means is that you understand your weaknesses and strengths. Novices should not assume: ‘My guruji played that, so I’m going to play it.’ The audience knows you are a student of a celebrated ustad, so you’re putting your guruji’s name to shame if you don’t play well. Remember you’re performing on the stage and not practising.
NMK: How would you define a good teacher?
ZH: I have noticed that most of the great maestros have students who are already at a certain level. Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasiaji, the great flautist, went to Annapurnaji after he had started performing. Nikhil Banerjee, the great sitar player, only went to Allauddin Khansahib when he was semi-professional or professional. So, they were at a level where they could inspire a great master like Baba to teach them because they had that spark.
It’s hard to tell if great musicians are great teachers. If you put a beginner in front of them, they would not have the patience to walk the beginner through the first steps that a modest 500-rupees-a-class teacher would have. Teachers who do all the nitty-gritty work are good teachers too. They provide you with the basic packages. They’ll tell you what you need, but they are unable to tell you what to do with all that.
NMK: I suppose it’s like asking Shakespeare to teach the English alphabet!
ZH: Precisely. In a prestigious university like Princeton, you will find a full professor will not necessarily do the teaching. The assistants and associate professors teach.
Essentially, a music teacher must find a way of opening the door to understanding the craft—how to put two and two together in a simple way. You can learn 500 ragas and their structure in a year, but what will you do with that knowledge? How will you bring it to fruition? Only when the building blocks are in place can your teacher point you in the right direction.
Abba taught me everything about the tabla—compositions, rhythms and, knowingly or unknowingly, he was preparing me to become a solo performer. Did that make me a good accompanist? No, because he was not teaching me how to interact with the lead musician. He did not tell me: ‘There’s a sitar player called Budhaditya Mukherjee, and he plays like this, so if you play the tabla with him, what will you do?’
Abba did not tell me how he played the tabla with Ravi Shankarji or Ali Akbar Khansahib, I had to listen and observe. I had to see how they conversed. What worked and what did not. Only after I attended hundreds of concerts was I able to use the information I had gathered. I had to develop my own way of scanning the brains of the musicians I was going to accompany. Figure out their moods and feelings, what they liked and did not like and then put together a package on the fly. There are 500 sitar players, and as many ways of playing the sitar, so one cannot apply the same theory to each and every instrumentalist. How can a guru tell you all this in advance?
NMK: So, you prefer not to take on students?
ZH: You see I grew up among musicians and saw some ustads who would accept a student at the drop of a hat. Musicians did not earn a great deal in former times, and so the guru–shishya ceremony itself provided some money. A student had to make a nazrana and offer gifts to the guru. Then the student officially became the student, but whether they got a chance to study with the master was not the issue.
My father used to say that his guru Mian Qadir Baksh had 125,000 students! I thought about it a lot and figured that if I lived ten lifetimes, I would not know 125,000 people. How was it possible for one man to teach 125,000 people?
When Abba first put his hand on the tabla to learn from Mian-ji, the guru said to him: ‘That’s the same way I approach and address my instrument. How did you learn that? I didn’t teach you. I’ve never met you before.’ Abba replied: ‘
But I have seen you.’ That made me think there were 125,000 people who considered themselves students of the guru—the believers, the fans, the wannabe players, people who in their hearts and minds had accepted him as their teacher without even studying with the ustad.
I remember when I travelled to different places with Sultan Khansahib; he would introduce me to people he said were his students. The same thing would happen in cities outside India. And I would ask: ‘Khansahib, when was the last time you were in Manchester?’ He said: ‘I can’t remember.’ ‘How can he be your student then? When did you teach him?’ ‘Oh, he came to me and I told him something.’ ‘Khansahib, you call this person your student, a person who has barely had a lesson from you and has been practising away from your watchful eye? God knows whether he has got it right or not. He could be going around saying he’s your student, even if he has seen you once ten years ago. What if he plays somewhere and he sucks and your musician friends hear him, they will say Sultan Khansahib does not know how to teach.’ He looked at me and said: ‘That’s all very well, but if he sings a composition of mine, he’s my student.’
It did not matter to some ustads if the students played well or badly, what mattered was the number of students they had. There were also many students of my father who could barely play because they had hardly spent time with him. That’s why I hesitate to take on students, but I am happy to mentor and guide young tabla players, and I do that. I have a yearly retreat that lasts between six and ten days and usually takes place every summer in California. We rent some quiet place in the hills and from morning to night we practise together and listen to music. We analyse the problems with our playing and I guide the proceedings.
Zakir Hussain Page 12