Still treasure the Rs 100 note given by Ali Akbar Khan: Zakir

Tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain still retains the Rs 100 note given to him as a gift by Ustad Ali Akbar Khan after a performance in Mumbai, 54 years ago.
Till date, Hussain remembers that small concert where he had performed at the tender age of 12 alongside the Sarod legend.
"The Rs 100 note till date remains my most prized possession," Hussain, now 66, said at a programme here.
The Padma Bhusan recipient also recalled how his mother became convinced that her son was made for tabla after he got Rs 1,000 as remuneration at the time.
"My mother did not wish me to pursue tabla as she saw my father, Alla Rakha, one of the great performers of his time, getting paid Rs 350 per month as an artist in contract with Mohan Studio," said the classical tabla player.

She had wanted Hussain to become a doctor instead, and sent him to an English medium school, the first one to come up in Mumbai's Mahim, where he used to stay in 1957-58, he said.

"During those days, tabla players were in the lower rung of the Hindustani classical music industry," he said in the 'Masterclass with the Legend' programme at INFOCOM 2017 here recently.
He said personalities such as Ustad Karamatullah Khan, Pt Kishan Maharaj, Pt Samta Prasad and Ustad Alla Rakha were responsible for the honour now bestowed on tabla players.
"I was born (in 1951) during a difficult time of the family as my father was very sick. One day, Alla Rakha put his lips into his ears and recited 'bols' (rhythms) of tabla. As as he was recovering, every day father would sing tabla rhythms into my ears as I sat on his laps. In this way, the music within him was transmitted to me," he said.

As a two-year old, he already had all the rhythms in himself as his father knew what he was going to be -- a tabla artiste, Hussain recalls.
Hussain also remembered how in his first year of college, he went to New York at the age of 18 and performed with Pandit Ravi Shankar in three concerts as his father had to return to India.
"Pandit Ravi Shankar and father unveiled me before the US audiences and Pandit-ji also arranged me a job of music teacher in the University of Washington. I returned after two years but during my stay in the US I would visit India every winter to perform in concerts and for getting accepted by my own people," he said.