Tabla rasa

The Chatur Lal memorial museum recreates the life of a pioneering Indian musician

It’s fitting that a museum to a tabla-player should be called Taa...Dhaa, the first beats of the tabla. Opened in December last year, Taa...Dhaa is a museum in memory of Pandit Chatur Lal, set up by his son Chiranjit Lal and granddaughter Shruti Lal. He was affectionately called Taa, says Shruti, hence the name.

Though Chatur Lal died way back in 1965, aged just 39, he remains an inspiration to many of today’s artists such as Ustad Zakir Hussain. He was the first tabla player to play in the West, when he accompanied Pandit Ravi Shankar and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan on their concerts in Europe and the US in the 1950s; and also the first Indian artist to cut a solo LP produced by World Pacific Records.

Located on the third floor of the house in South Extension where Chatur Lal lived after shifting to Delhi from Udaipur in 1947, the museum is actually a small family affair, with not even a board outside advertising its presence. It has been built in the very space where baithaks were held when Lal was alive, and at which many well known musicians performed.

The museum brings to life the varied achievements and collaborations of this much-feted musician. There are his letters, souvenirs from all over the world, and photographs with famous musicians such as Yehudi Menuhin, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Sir Philly Joe Jones (American jazz drummer), Baba Allaudin Khan, and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, and also dignitaries like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Queen Elizabeth, Octavio Paz and Gene Kelly who admired his music.

Lovingly preserved are his gold buttons, cuff-links, the suitcase he used when he travelled within India and another that he used on overseas trips, numerous ties — he had a fetish for them, his records, harmonica, tanpura and tabla.

Coming up is an audio-cum-video section at the rear of the museum where rare recordings of Chatur Lal with Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and Vilayat Khan can be heard.

State chief minister Sheila Dixit inaugurated the museum but Shruti says that they got no help from the government in building it. “My father and I did everything on our own, shelling out our savings. The government didn’t even respond to our request for land,” says Shruti, who is now working on her grandfather’s biography.

Perhaps, it is for the good. With state-run museums being in such a sorry state, it is individual initiatives such as these that are probably the only way to save our heritage.

Taa...Dha, the Chatur Lal Memorial Museum
P-96, 2nd Floor, South Extension Part II
Tel: 011-24623208