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A Pathway to Knowledge
ing selection from an interview with a senior disciple of Ustad Allah
Rakha provides a good example of the spiritual dimension attributed
to gurus by disciples.
Going through all that with great control, getting over every hur-
dle and being successful in every mission he [Abbaji] has had to
sacrifice a lot.^3 Every artist has to do this. They reach a stage where
they become very vibrant. It becomes like a discipline, just like the
spiritual one. Your only aim is God and nothing else. Similarly,
Abbaji’s only aim is tabla. So even when you are sitting around
him there is this magnetic field of tabla bols going around and you
just get engulfed with it. That is my observation. Even though he
is just sitting he is looking at everything in musical and rhythmic
terms. From his balcony you can see the sea. When he sees the
waves the rhythm of the waves is fascinating him also. He is get-
ting inspiration from that or he is creating something from that
inspiration. When he sees the sun or the movement of the sun in
that also there is lay (rhythm). He sees lay in everything. (Yogesh
Samsi 1996 )
The Masters and the Music
The classical music system in India is divided into two distinct re-
gionally based categories, the Hindustani or Northern classical style
originating within the Mogul court system and the Karnatic or South
Indian style. Tabla, known more for its accompaniment of various in-
struments such as the sitar and sarod the Northern style of classical
dance, kathak, has progressed in recent times to the status of a solo
art form (Kippen 1991 ). Ustad Allah Rakha Khan, Ustad Ahmedjan
Thirakwa, Ustad Amir Hussain Khan, and others have been para-
mount in this reinvention of tabla as a solo instrument both in India
and around the globe. The generation of tabla players who followed
these artists, such as Ustad Zakir Hussain, Pandit Anindo Chatterjee,
Trilok Gurtu, and Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri continue to recreate this
complex art form as they and tabla travel around the world.^4
In the 1960 s and 1970 s as an accompanist to the sitar maestro Ravi
Shankar (sitar) Allah Rakha brought tabla and Hindustani classical
