Ustad- a tribute--The BEAT goes on --He lives in every beat on TABLA.
Alla Rakha, who was universally known by that name, sometimes rendered as Allarakha, usually preceded by the honorific Ustad, which means teacher or guru, died of a heart attack at age 80 on Feb 3rd
BOMBAY, India -- The mingled sound of splashes and shouts from
the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Olympic Pool drifted into the cool,
dark room when the park attendant, clad in black Lycra bicycle shorts,
opened the padlocked doors, insisting that all who entered must first take
off their sandals as a sign of respect.
Inside was the small, austere
space where Alla Rakha
Qureshi, one of India's most
venerated classical musicians,
had come most evenings for
the last 15 years. Here, he
taught his disciples the
mathematically complex
rhythms of the tabla, the
humble two-piece drum that
he elevated to an exalted
status in more than half a
century of playing the world's
grandest concert halls, often
with the renowned sitar player
Ravi Shankar.
On this day, the curtains of this room perched on the Arabian Sea were
drawn and the maestro's voice was stilled.
Alla Rakha, who was universally known by that name, sometimes
rendered as Allarakha, usually preceded by the honorific Ustad, which
means teacher or guru, died of a heart attack at age 80 on Feb. 3, just
hours after his 50-year-old daughter, Razia, died suddenly and
unexpectedly after routine cataract surgery.
"He couldn't bear it," said his son Fazal Qureshi, 38, describing his
father's reaction to the loss of the daughter who had lived at home and
tended to his needs, giving him medications, taking his calls and
accompanying him to concerts.
Alla Rakha's students, who were at his side when he lapsed into
unconsciousness, immediately put away their instruments to honor their
guru. And his tabla-playing sons -- Fazal and Zakir Hussain, who is
considered one of the world's greatest living tabla players -- canceled
their performances to rush home.
Ever since, the front door to the large family apartment here has been
thrown open. Musicians, dancers, singers and painters have poured in to
console the twice bereft family and pay their respects to the man they so
often found lost in thought on his sofa, counting out his calculations of
drum beats.
The mourners clustered cross-legged on the Persian carpets in the living
room and gathered before a garlanded photograph of Alla Rakha playing
his tabla and wearing a sweetly mischievous smile. Curls of smoke
wafted the subtle scent of burning incense through the apartment.
Sitara Devi, an aging dancer in the Kathak tradition of north India,
creaked as she rose from the floor. She recalled the early days in the
1940's when Alla Rakha sang catchy tunes while she danced in Hindi
films, and later when he played the tabla as she entertained rapturous
throngs across India.
"He played very complicated rhythms," she said. "I used to say, 'Sahib,
please don't play difficult or I won't be able to follow you!' "
Alla Rakha's students have come each night, and among them was a
25-year-old tabla player from Minneapolis, Suphala Patnakar, who talks
in a flat Midwestern accent but wears her hair in long dark ringlets down
her back and dresses in an Indian-style white tunic over matching pants.
For several months each winter since she was 19, she has come to
Bombay to study at the feet of the great Alla Rakha. She described
sitting quietly with him in the mornings, waiting for him to recite a rhythm
for her to play.
"If you wanted to learn from Alla Rakha, you were expected to be
around for a while," she said.
More than any other musician, Alla Rakha brought the tabla to
international prominence during more than 20 years touring abroad with
Mr. Shankar, from the late 1950's until the 1970's. Together they played
at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, the Woodstock festival in 1969
and the concert for Bangladesh in Madison Square Garden in 1971.
"He was a fabulous drummer," Mr. Shankar said. "His speciality was a
very loving personality. He had such happiness in his playing."
Alla Rakha was a purist, not a showman, in his performances. Critics
described his presence on stage as luminous, joyous and revelatory.
The magic in his playing grew out of his fluency in the grammar of tabla,
the verbal corollary of the drummed beats, and his ability to translate
spoken tabla into an improvisational, poetic music.
"There was a sense of commas, exclamations and full stops," said
Raghava Menon, author of many books about Indian classical music. "He
played with punctuation."
Even in his later years, when he had lost the physical strength for grueling
concert schedules and night after night of intricate, energetic finger play,
Alla Rakha and his sons gave performances at Carnegie Hall and
Symphony Space in New York, among other venues.
His greatest musical contribution was in helping to lift the tabla -- a
centuries-old instrument that dates from the Mogul era -- from its
second-class role as an accompanying instrument to that of solo
instrument.
"In the 1950's tabla players were sometimes not even mentioned on an
album," said his celebrated 48-year-old son, Zakir Hussain, who lives in
San Francisco. "The tabla player traveled by train while other musicians
flew. Now the tabla player is loved and honored. He travels by airplane,
business class or first class, stays in fabulous hotels and is treated as a
star."
Just as remarkable as Alla Ra kha's worldly accomplishments was his
mystical commitment to the tabla -- and his success in imbuing a
generation of students with the same love of percussion, say his students
and children.
Alla Rakha himself was the eldest among the seven sons of a small
farmer. He became entranced as a boy by the small drama troupes that
performed stories from the Hindu epics, the Ramayana and the Maha
bharata. He joined in, learning to drum, and when he was just 14
apprenticed himself to a tabla guru in Lahore, said his youngest son,
Taufiq.
His two daughters and three sons grew up in a home where their father,
absent much of the year on tour, literally spoke tabla at the dinner table.
The techniques of tabla playing have been handed down orally -- not in
written musical notation form -- and the music is largely improvisational,
not composed. Alla Rakha, the guru, recited these phrases of playing
over dinner, and his sons would play after the dishes were cleared.
The family's life was filled with sound of the tabla.
"When he was on stage and started playing, for us it was like God
himself," said Taufiq, who now plays percussion on instruments from
Africa, Latin America and India. "His eyes played the tabla. His body
played. Some beautiful expressions of pleasure, ecstasy and serenity
would come when he was playing."
Alla Rakha's elder daughter, Kurshid Aulia, said she had the rhythm in
her but her mother would not allow a daughter, who should be learning to
cook and clean, to become a musician. "My misfortune was that I was
born of a different sex," she said.
But the father became a guru to each of his sons, though only after each
of them convinced him that he had a sense of rhythm. His two youngest
sons spoke of him in awe.
"It was a very difficult proposition, having a father who's also your guru,"
Fazal said. "The status of a teacher is higher than a father. It's a very
reverent relationship. You can refuse your parents' word, but a guru
guides you in every turn of your life."
Alla Rakha was a demanding guru. His displeasure with faulty playing
was a fearsome thing, and his pleasure in good playing was spontaneous
and childlike.
"He never raised a hand, but he would show his anger and make you
play it again and again and again," said Taufiq, whose father took him on
as a student at age 12. "His face would become very strict, as if in
disgust, as though he were thinking, 'What are you doing to my tabla, this
priceless thing?' as though you had just broken a crystal glass."
For Alla Rakha the tabla was like a religion and a mother tongue. Fazal
recalled that when his father would accept an award or release a
cassette, he would first speak a few words of Hindustani. But then he
would switch to the language of the tabla, reciting the phrases that his
fleet, strong fingers tattooed on goatskin. |
