Audience shouldn’t treat musicians on stage as a piece of furniture

Audience shouldn’t treat musicians on stage as a piece of furniture

    Tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain spoke about his legendary father, his daughters and his music in an interview. Excerpts:
How do you still maintain this boyish charm at the age of 62? If you grow up with something that you’ve always enjoyed, loved and connected with at a level where you feel totally contented, then life itself becomes joyous. When something has such an affect on you that it transports you to a different level of consciousness, you get an incredible amount of happiness and you feel like sharing the same with others. And that’s how it's been with me; I feel a sublime, divine connect with my instrument.
You’ve forged a specific connect with your audience, yet we’ve seen you chiding them… There are certain dos and don’ts that we should follow at live concerts. The dos are, let’s all of us be on the same page and the don’ts are, even if we are not on the same page, let’s not make it obvious. Picture this: At a concert, people coming and searching for their seats, somebody shaking hands with others, and against that backdrop, Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia is deeply involved in his alaap. That’s when I chide the audience. They should never treat the musicians sitting on the stage as a piece of furniture. I’m okay if they start a little late to give the audience some time to settle down. But when I come on stage, there should be nothing between me and my audience, not even the audience itself! The chiding stems from my concern for my audience.
Have you ever experienced irreverence from your audience? Actually, I’ve experienced both the extremes within 24 hours, in Nagpur in 1965. I was 14 something then and Baba Uttarwar Saheb was having a concert here and on the first day, I was playing an accompanist to violinist D K Datar and we just couldn’t establish a connect with the audience. Then came a point when we were booed by the audience! Next day, I, along with Sitarist Indranil Bhattacharya and Sarod player Aashish Khan, played as a trio on the same stage, in front of the same audience. When I started playing, the wah wah, ooh, aah started pouring in from the audience. They didn’t let us get off the stage for three hours.
You’ve had stints with the likes of Mickey Hart and John McLaughlin and relished your duos and trios with Indian classical musicians. What do you enjoy more, collaborations with Western performers or jugalbandi with Indian contemporaries? I enjoy both as I enjoy accompaniments. In an international environment with a western collaborator, the challenge is of a different kind. The sounds are different, tones are different, and feeling of how you are going to react is different so, it’s difficult to say that I enjoy one more than other.
You’ve given sleepless nights to your father Alla Rakha saab as he feared you may hurt your fingers owing to your fascination with cricket and that’ll abort your chances of playing tabla. (Laughs) But, you wouldn’t talk about the sleepless nights he gave me! During my childhood, when I was studying in Mumbai, I had to leave my house at 6.30 am for school. From the age of seven till the age of 12, he would wake me up at 2 am and would teach me music till six in the morning. So, who gave whom sleepless nights?
And have your daughters, Anisa and Isabella, given you sleepless nights? (Smiles) Only when they were going out on their first dates! Both of them are artistes. Anisa is a film producer in Hollywood and got married two years ago while Isabella is a choreographer. As you know, I’m a night bird, so when my daughters were babies, my duty was to be with them after coming back from the concerts, from midnight till about six in the morning. Then my wife would wake up and I would sleep. So, while I got a great chance to be alone with my father in my childhood in the nights (from 2 am to 6 am), I also got a chance of spending exclusive time with my babies during nights only.

Ustad Zakir Hussain