Zakir, Anisa, Sunjog, Sabah

One day, S. came home and saw my mother’s veena. He sat down, cradled it on his lap, and then started to strum, play around, and then began to play. He had never played this instrument before, and it had taken him the better half of five minutes to figure it out. S. was my bhaiyya, the elder brother, whom I always called by name. And he called me kutti - the little one.

When I must have been about twelve, S. said ‘Listen to this,’ he said and gave me a cassette with ‘Making Music’ hand written on its spine. Side A and B had Making Music, Water Girl, Anisa, You and Me, Zakir, Toni, Sunjog, and Sabah. The music was by Zakir Hussain with Jan Garbarek, John Mclaughlin, and Hariprasad Chaurasia. That was my first audio cassette, and I fell in love with what music could be, rather what Zakir wanted it to be. When I heard Zakir Hussain had decided to leave this planet, the first person I wanted to talk to was S. I could not, for he is already jamming with Zakir, a great gig in the sky.

The tape recorder in my house would have met the Making Music cassette many hundreds of times. There were no lyrics, and yet, the soundscape was so distinct with the tabla, flute, and saxophone, that you could not mistake it for any other album. After that, my musical snout sniffed out any scent of Zakir Hussain from every nook and shelf cranny of any music store or shelf. I discovered Shakti, and told S. excitedly. He just gave me another cassette. It was Mahavishnu Orchestra. There was John Mclaughlin but no Zakir — I did not like it much, but pretended for a while, till I finally confessed to S. that it did nothing for me. Some years later, S. gave me my first CD - it was Moment Records volume 1.

Moment Records is Zakir Hussain’s record label founded in 1991. In the Volume 1, the CD which I listened to by making my desktop CD player eat it almost every day was a compilation of snippets of other albums Zakir recorded with music greats. That’s where I first heard Girija Devi, VG Jog, and the Rhythm Experience. How do I tell you how much that music seeped into the hours that made my life, indelibly inking them that those names on the CD cover became familiars and the notes incantations that could conjure both memories and moods? Even now, my ringtone for my phone is Balinese Fantasy.

Of course, I have seen Zakir Hussain perform. I have crushed over his bouncing curls in Saaz. I grieved with him and for him when he lost his sister Razia and his father Alla Rakha within a span of a few days. He could not have known what his music gave me. Listening to Making Music and Shakti felt like a continent of musical possibilities stretching out, waiting for me to explore and revel in. The Moment Records volume drew me back into Hindustani music — it felt like coming back home after wandering across strange lands. The memories I made in my teenaged years with his music playing were an anchor for a child often alone, but never lonely, for as your song said, ‘What need have for I for this, what need have I for that, I am dancing at the feet of my lord, all is bliss, all is bliss’. I do not know when I started speaking to you inside my head, but that change from his to your in the last sentence does not feel like an error. I will continue to talk to you, and listen to you, and say hello to S. for me, will you?