This article was written as part of a publication released during the Saptak Annual Festival 2019, which was dedicated to the memory of Ustad Allarakha.
Most children feel drawn to a certain something when they are young. For me, it was always the tabla. When I was a boy, we would have merasis travelling through our village with their melas and they’d drive me away because I had no money in my pocket. But I’d hang around - there would invariably be very good Pakhavaj players and Dhrupad and Khayal singers in these troupes and they made me fall in love with music. खरबजेू को देखकर खरबजाु रंग पकडता है - Melons ripen in the company of other melons. Each performance would have a tabla player and it was the tabla that always held my attention.
- Ustad Allarakha, Interview, July 1999.
That this child’s fascination with the tabla would become obsessive to the point where it would drive him away from his home at the age of twelve in search of a Guru was probably not what his family expected. His father, Hashim Ali Qureshi Sahib was a farmer who lived with his family in a tiny hamlet called Phagwal, just outside the city of Jammu. Qureshi sahib was fond of music and was an amateur actor too, but it is unlikely that he imagined that his eldest son, Allarakha Qureshi, born April 29 1919, would grow up to become the celebrated Ustad Allarakha, known to his legions of admirers as Abbaji, the one name most synonymous with the tabla of the twentieth century.
Qureshi Saheb indulged his son’s growing passion - Abbaji was sent to learn some Dhrupad from a local teacher and he studied the basics of rhythm with Ustad Lal Mohammad, a disciple of the iconic Mian Kader Baksh of the Pakhawaj masters of the Punjab school. Abbaji even performed his first tabla solo at the age of twelve; but choosing the tabla as a career was against the conventions of his time and his community. Like so many musicians have had to do,
Abbaji left home. Inexplicably drawn towards the name and the image of Mian Kader Baksh Pakhawaji - the Ustad he had never seen, but only heard about from his teacher - Abbaji journeyed, alone at the age of twelve, to Lahore.
The Lahore of the 1930s was a hub of cultural activity and many musicians lived there. Every Friday, after prayers, a baithak would be held in someone’s house - ‘आज उनके त कये पे बठैक है’ they would say. These were usually afternoon gatherings since the musicians had to play for the Bai-ji’s later in the evenings. At one such soiree, a performance of Dhrupad, Abbaji volunteered to fill in for an absent pakhawaj player. Without heeding the enormity or the protocol of the situation and in spite of the remonstrations of the host, he went ahead and amazed the audience with his drumming. The keen child had already picked up so much from what he was exposed to in his village and was able to provide all the support the singer needed. Mian Kader Baksh heard of this accomplished twelve-year-old drummer and a meeting between the two was arranged.
The connection between Ustad and Shagird was immediate. The Ustad, surprised at how accurately the Shagird was able to emulate the guru’s style, even his hand placement, asked: “Whose disciple are you?”. “Yours” came the reply - the bond was formed and the taleem begun.
Mian Kader Baksh was a celebrated musician and a busy performer. His concerts would keep him occupied for weeks. The young Abbaji would be present in service to him and to visiting musicians - performing chores, making tea, all the while observing, listening and learning. The Ustad would then would spend a few days with Abbaji doing nothing but playing tabla together. Abbaji’s regimen of practice and dedication was the stuff of legend: for six years Abbaji worked around the clock, putting in disciplined practice and honing his skills while he lived and trained with his Ustad. As was the convention of the time, Mian Kader Baksh also sent him to study Raag Vidya - vocal music - under the direction of Ustad Ashiq Ali Khan of the Patiala Gharana - an Ustad who had mentored the likes of Khansaheb Bade Gulam Ali Khan. The melodic sensibilities he acquired during this time would prove to be of great value to the work he was to do in his later years.
In 1936, at the age of sixteen, Abbaji found employment at All India Radio Lahore and from here, an independent career began to take shape. After a brief stint at AIR Delhi, he moved in 1940 to Bombay and joined the ranks at AIR there. Bombay was to become Abbaji’s home. He got married to Bavi Begum around this time and played tabla for a host of artists at AIR and otherwise, including performing solos. Always the melting-pot, Bombay was fertile ground for a young musician embarking upon a career. There was work there, of course, for good musicians and then there were the addas - spaces of revelry that became informal communes where musicians from the film world and the classical world met and spoke music. A Madan Mohan would present a new, sombre composition to a Laxman Prasad Jaipurwale, who would respond - with praise or criticism sometimes, but invariably with a new Bandish laden with his signature intricate taans. Or, there would be a majlis, a gathering at the home of Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khansaheb where the musicians in the gathering would sing traditional devotional naats that would stick in Abbaji’s mind. Bombay was where Inspiration was freely shared, where new ideas and old traditions could meet. So many of the Gharanedar Ustads came and distinguished themselves (to their audiences as well as from each other) in Bombay; Bombay was where a talent like Abbaji’s could thrive.
The Hindi film music of the ‘40s and ‘50s is widely known for the riches of melody and rhythm it delivered to the masses of the country. Abbaji’s prior training in vocal music as well as his innate musicality enabled him to become a successful composer of the film song. He was on the payroll of Mohan Studio and there was a time when he used to go there almost every day. With Rangmahal Studios, Sunrise Pictures, Saafik Productions and the like, working under the pseudonym of A. R. Qureshi, Abbaji composed prolifically. As many as twenty-five of the films he composed for proved hits, of which as many as fifteen, including Madari and Sabak becoming Golden Jubilee hits - a fact he was proud of.
But Abbaji’s heart was always in the tabla. Together with his work in cinema, he continued to perform as an accompanist with renowned vocal and instrumental soloists and had started developing a reputation as a soloist himself. His admirers reverently remember his playing in these, the days of his youth - the virility he brought to his playing, the sheer speed and accuracy of his fingers set him apart. But these were times when tabla players everywhere were looked upon as supporters only, not as complete musicians in themselves. Consequently, they were never paid very well. Abbaji’s family often ran out of money in these times, but he was a man of faith and always trusted that they would be taken care of. The Qureshi family lived in a single room then - in a Bombay chawl with only common toilets for all its residents. It was thanks to Bavi Begum’s frugality and resourcefulness that they were able to make ends meet and eventually move to a flat in Mahim in 1954.
The ‘50s proved to be a decade of change for Abbaji professionally too. His growing popularity as a tabla player and his growing disillusionment with cinema culminated in him eventually giving films up to become a dedicated, full-time tabla artist. And the ‘50s was when Abbaji entered into the partnership of his lifetime, as the collaborator of Pandit Ravi Shankar.
Pandit Ravi Shankar’s westward charge is an enduring part of the history of the music of the world. As Raviji and Abbaji began touring the west through the late ‘50s and ‘60s, they slowly became a phenomenon. They played everywhere - from airports to music schools, from respected classical auditoria to the thirty-thousand strong throngs at Woodstock; they put out best-selling records, taught westerners prolifically, collaborated with western musicians and ended up becoming the definition of Indian music abroad, its biggest ambassadors. Other Indian musicians had travelled west before them, but the Ravi-Alla duo was the first to really open up new windows to welcome unfamiliar, uninitiated audiences into this ancient, mysterious tradition.
Their genius lay in reinterpreting the traditions they had inherited, by focussing on the one overarching commonality between Ragasangeet and Jazz music - spontaneous improvisation. While staying rooted in the eternal bedrock of raga-tala, Raviji found a way to turn Indian music into an entertaining art form. They broke away from the cliche of the meditative, introverted Indian musician questing for spiritual upliftment in solitude, while the other musicians on stage confined themselves to support and accompaniment alone. When the Ravishankar-Allarakha duo took the stage, they were equals, sparring partners. With their consummate knowledge of each other’s craft, they were able to give each other free reign; and they conversed with each other as two jazz musicians would. They commanded the stage as genuine masters of their instruments and as unapologetic, electric showmen. They made their audiences complicit in the music that was being composed and executed within each present moment. With the virile virtuosity of their playing and the childlike joy and transparency in their faces, the west couldn’t get enough of them.
The west’s newfound appreciation of their music can be summed up in what the drummer Mickey Hart says about Abbaji: "Allah Rakha is the Einstein, the Picasso; he is the highest form of rhythmic development on this planet."
This electrifying partnership lasted nearly three decades and its ripples were felt back home in India as much as abroad. In the west, everyone from classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin to popular guitarist George Harrison was captivated by their virtuosity as much as by the refinement and sophistication of the Indian musical tradition. In India, the partnership set a precedent and tabla players found themselves moving more and more into the spotlight, shedding their ‘accompanist-only’ status. Abbaji was naturally a much sought after accompanist during these years, but it is a testament to a sense of loyalty, a kind of simple purity he possessed, that he saw himself as Raviji’s partner only and largely refused concerts with other artists for monetary gain.
Ever the eclectic experimenter, Abbaji developed an appreciation for Jazz and had many friends from the Jazz world visiting him in Bombay. Aside from his work with Indian classical musicians, Abbaji notably collaborated with American jazz drummer Buddy Rich to create the album Rich à la Rakha, a pioneering experiment in the type of cross-cultural musical fusion that became increasingly popular later in the 20th century. Back home, Abbaji also began bridging the gap between Carnatic and Hindustani music by performing with both renowned Carnatic musicians as well as the Hindustani greats, including Kathak dancers like Pandit Birju Maharaj, always creating and experimenting, always teaching and learning. His solo tabla performances - on his own as well as with his prodigal son Ustad Zakir Hussain - were masterful demonstrations of rhythmic achievement and kept growing in popularity.
For all his eloquence on the tabla though, Abbaji was a quiet man. When asked to speak at events or press conferences, he would ask to play the tabla instead. “This is the language I know," he would say, “I’m sorry, I cannot speak, only my hands can”. His journeys west took him away from family and this affected him deeply - receiving a letter from his wife while abroad could move him to tears.
In the ‘80s, Abbaji began focussing more on teaching the tabla back home in Bombay at the Allarakha Foundation which he established in 1986. His accomplishment as a guru is exemplified in his students who, including Ustad Zakir Hussain and Ustad Yogesh Samsi among many others, function at the very pinnacle of tabla playing today.
Imparting the knowledge he had received and developed was important to Abbaji. He took teaching seriously. Though always calm and composed as a teacher, Abbaji disliked shortcuts and was famously rigorous in his taleem. Zakirji often recalls how, as a child, he would be woken up at 3 am and would be taught पढंत (vocal recitation in the tabla’s phonetic language) - they threw phrases back and forth as Abbaji introduced him to the compositions of the old masters with deep reverence for a tradition he held sacred.
The पढंत was a powerful tool in Abbaji’s approach to teaching. He used it to drive a composition or its elaboration, including its accents, its structure and its emotional character into the student’s system. Ever the creative artist, Abbaji’s taleem had flow and momentum. Yogeshji recalls how this forced the students to develop tremendous focus and a razor-sharp memory because, in his flow of infinite inventiveness, he wouldn’t repeat a composition more than a few times - it was up to the student to internalise it within that short span before Abbaji would move on. Even notebooks were not allowed - Abbaji taught in the true spirit of the oral tradition that Indian music essentially is.
It is noteworthy that Abbaji imparted not only information to his students, but also his energy and his ability to innovate. He recognised that his students were different from him and was comfortable with the idea that even his sons had their own personality and would not be his copies. He thus instilled in his students the idea that it is not wrong to assimilate, analyse and emulate when necessary.
As a trained vocalist, Abbaji was also able to tell his students about ragas and vocal compositions, together with their emotional features, while guiding them towards becoming sensitive accompanists. Ustad Zakir Hussain’s stature today is a rare example of an accomplished father guiding his son towards a similarly high level of accomplishment.
The tabla was Abbaji’s life-force and he spent all his waking hours immersed in rhythm. Zakirji recalls how his fingers would keep drumming even as he fell asleep. Pt. Suresh Talwalkar often fondly recalls how he and his disciples tried unsuccessfully to get an ageing Abbaji to rest and to stop the unceasing metronome in his mind - they would massage one hand to stop it from drumming, and the other hand would start; when another disciple was asked to massage that hand, his feet would take up the beat! Because Abbaji never retired from creative thought, his musical thought never became outdated. He continued to be a respected composer and a loved and sought-after Guru until the very end of his life - a testament to the cliche that old is gold. Always surrounded by admirers, always a personification of charisma and simple refinement, Abbaji received and radiated joy even through his last years.
On February 3 2000, at the age of 81, unable to bear the sudden tragic loss of his daughter, Abbaji passed away. He is survived by his wife Bavi Begum, his prodigal son and heir Ust. Zakir Hussain his younger sons Ust. Fazal Qureshi and Ust. Taufiq Qureshi, his daughter Khurshid Qureshi, nine grandchildren, accomplished students who are today masters in their own right and legions of fans and admirers.
With a Grammy award, the Padma Shri, the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and the Chowdaiah award among many others, Ustad Allarakha Khansaheb was recognised in his time as an accomplished master musician.
Ustad Allarakha’s Music
The Punjab Gharana of percussion, which has now become synonymous with the names of Ustad Allarakha Khansaheb and his followers, has its roots in the old tradition of the master Pakhawaj players of Punjab. Its fertile plains separated by large distances from the important centres of development of the tabla, Punjab fostered a vibrant tradition of boisterous, sophisticated Pakhawaj playing. The energy of spoken Punjabi is distinctly recognisable in its percussive traditions too - with syllables like धाडधा, दंगुदंगु , नगनग, धिटत, घिडत, कडघान्, धडन्ना, the percussive language of this gharana has an endearingly colloquial flavour that serves as evidence of its geographical origins.
Ustad Allarakha Khansaheb was thus the inheritor of a Pakhawaj tradition - his own guru Mian Kader Baksh was primarily a Pakhawaj player. But Abbaji’s own playing was not a mere transposition of Pakhawaj vidya onto the tabla. Instead, he recognised that the tabla was a very different instrument, given to a different kind of music. He placed himself, therefore, squarely in the realm of improvisational tabla playing and moved away from the relative immutability of the Pakhawaj. A small digression into the mechanics of these two streams of Indian classical percussion would give better context to Abbaji’s own contribution to the tabla.
While the Pakhawaj is recognised as the progenitor of the tabla, its traditional association is with Dhrupad singing, just as tabla playing is inextricably linked with Khayal singing. These are overlapping traditions, of course, but there are fundamental, undeniable differences between the two.
The rhythms of the tabla have evolved to have become repeating cycles that move from fuller bass sounds (भर ) to lighter treble sounds (खाल ) before regaining their heaviness and culminating at the first beat of the cycle - the climactic sum - only to begin all over again. These cycles of खाल -भर are a phenomenon that represents the fundamental nature of Khayal-Tabla music: they lock the musician inside an infinite loop of self-reflexive, improvisational, spontaneous music making. Through forms like the Peshkar and the Kayda, a tabla player will introduce a theme - a composition written in tabla language - and then use his cycles of खाल -भर to delve deeper into the recesses of the theme, to explore its infinite possibilities, to elaborate, innovate and improvise. The Peshkar and Kayda forms, pregnant with such possibility and laden with the riches of the tabla’s unique phonetic language, are what give the art of tabla playing its distinguishing identity.
The pakhawaj, on the other hand, tends more towards the performance of compositions that have already been developed to a state of completion. Developing and exploring them in performance is not usually the pakhawaj player’s prerogative.
The Pakhawaj based Punjab tradition that Abbaji inherited did have its share of highly accomplished tabla players. But their repertoire consisted mainly of fixed compositions - beautiful, long-winding gats, gat-parans, todas and the like that drew upon traditional pakhawaj fare. Peshkar and Kayda elaboration was not what Punjab was known for. It was Abbaji who firmly established in his tradition what his admirers call ‘Pure Tabla’ - improvisational playing cradled within the swing of the खाल -भर . This gave the tabla solo a weighty presence in the Punjab tradition and established it as a distinct Gharana of tabla repertoire. But the ever-inventive Allarakha had more to offer. He reimagined traditional ‘pure tabla’ repertoire too and gave it an intricacy and an articulation that had not been conceived of before him.
Tabla playing has traditionally looked at rhythmic development as an exercise in sophisticated prosody. The tabla is the only percussion instrument in the world that has a fully developed phonetic language that mirrors the various sounds this versatile instrument is capable of producing. Listening to the old Ustads was play was like listening to a recital of poetry. They wrote and developed poetry in the language of the tabla and revelled in the resonances of their syllables, the construction of their sentences using the rich vocabulary of the instrument, in creating tension through phrasing and punctuation as they moved through their खाल -भर and in the grace with which they resolved it at the sum.
Needless to say, Abbaji admired and empathised with and understood this mode of doing things. But at heart, Ustad Allarakha was a master mathematician - exploring language alone did not satisfy him. He was instinctively able to see the minutest subdivisions of each beat of the rhythm cycle, while simultaneously visualising the cycle in its entirety. This allowed him to create compositions of astounding mathematical complexity, creating accent and emphasis at impossibly elusive points in the rhythm cycle, while still retaining the grace and eloquence of the tabla’s linguistic tradition.
Even the widely spaced beats of the slow peshkar yielded to Abbaji’s microscopic marksmanship. His own definition of the peshkar was “पेशकार मतलब पेच काटना” - and Abbaji’s peshkars truly built up complex lines and sliced them at devilishly tricky points. This gave the peshkar a new vibrancy and opened up a whole new dimension for tabla players to engage with.
With his penchant for complex rhythm-slicing, Abbaji ran the risk of having his playing sound convoluted and choppy. But his genius lay in avoiding these traps by harking back to fundamental characteristics of traditional tabla playing. First, he rooted his composition and improvisation in the discipline of खाल -भर . His playing uncompromisingly adhered to the natural structure of the Talas, always keeping the big-picture of the cycle in mind and never disrupting the traditional divisions that held the tala-cycle together. This made sure his inventions were very much at home within the prosody and the poetics of traditional tabla.
Secondly, Abbaji chose to retain the बदं बा (closed style) of the old Delhi Ustads. This is a playing technique where one controls the resonances of one's instruments, so that there is always a restrained, unostentatious dignity to their tone, the polar opposite of the open, unfettered resonances of the pakhawaj. As a result, Abbaji’s playing always sounded smooth and tuneful, never rough or jarring. This is not to say that he was incapable of playing the boisterous दम-खम का तबला - he had, after all, trained in a pakhawaj tradition and was known for his ability to interject thunderously when the situation called for it. But his aptitude for finesse drew him towards what is called the ‘दो उंगल का बा’ - a traditional two-finger technique of playing the tabla that allows for very fine, controlled work at very high speeds.
The speed, the complexity and the technical virtuosity he thus achieved thus left his audiences breathless. But it might have been his training as a vocalist that caused him to make sure that he never compromised on the sheer tunefulness of his instrument’s sound. While Abbaji’s treble drum created intricate mathematical form, his bass drum stayed expressive and sensitive, even at very high speeds. Abbaji was also known for the fine balance he was able to maintain between the two tabla drums so that the two always sounded as one.
Abbaji was also a prolific composer of tabla compositions. He had great reverence for the old masters as well as for his contemporaries and was known to be a living encyclopaedia of choice tabla compositions. But a large part of the repertoire he brought into performance was very much his own, born of the incessant inspired work he put into his music making. He chose sparingly from the vast world of tabla vocabulary and used the language he chose to create compositions that were exceedingly rich in formal structure and mathematical complexity. He brought in cross-rhythms, tihais and chakradhar s with complex spacing, gats, parans, tukdas, kaydas and chalan s of new and diverse construction, always pushing the boundaries of mathematical intricacy, always maintaining the austerity of the tabla’s original tonal character. They say just attempting to recite Abbaji’s compositions is enough of an education in rhythm.
Another important contribution Abbaji made was to play the tabla solo in Talas like Jhaptal and Roopak, and even unconventional talas like Pancham Savari and Punjabi Dhamar. Tabla solo playing is usually restricted to the 16-beat teental - Abbaji established the practice of playing it in so many others. His compositions of Kayda were constructed to be malleable so that a composition written for teental could be twisted only slightly to make it fit another tala with ease.
With compact, structurally rich and tonally musical statements, Abbaji always kept his audiences enthralled. His tabla was truly experimental, always taking risks, always exploring new territory. Even as an accompanist, he was electric - ever ready to respond with spontaneity and inventiveness to anything a collaborator could throw at him, while always keeping his playing relevant to the compositional aesthetic of his co-artist. His ability to capture in one rhythm cycle the essence of what his collaborators had just done in many was uncanny. He was even known for his पढंत - his dramatic vocal recitation of tabla compositions.
All the new ground Ustad Allarakha Khansaheb broke in composition, improvisation, accompaniment and technique have led to what could be argued to have become a new Gharana of tabla playing - a distinct school of aesthetic ideology with its own sound, its own perception of beauty and its own internal discipline.
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