Denise Nuttallmusic to millions of people around the globe. Events at Woodstock
and Monterrey, California, in the United States were, in part, cru-
cial for the development of the study of tabla outside India, in North
America and Europe. When Allah Rakha passed away in February of
2000 , his eldest son, Zakir Hussain became head of the Punjab gha-
rana (school).
The popularity of Zakirji as a performer, celebrity, and composer
continues to reach new heights year after year. Zakirji’s concert sched-
ule includes more than 150 events around the world per year. On top
of this, he dedicates much time to numerous Indian classical music re-
cordings, world music and fusion recordings, performing, advising,
composing, and acting in feature films such as Bertolucci’s Little Bud-
dha and Anita Desai’s In Custody, Merchant Ivory’s Heat and Dust,
and, more recently, Rahul Bose’s Everybody Says I’m Fine. Because
of his many talents and amazing skills as a musician and tabla player,
Zakirji’s popularity has soared in India. In India, Zakirji is a much
sought-after celebrity for consumer endorsements such as Taj Mahal
Tea. This includes media coverage in the form of commercials as well
as billboards and posters. In addition to this grueling schedule, Zakirji
also teaches for a number of months in the Bay Area, California, and
periodically in Mumbai at the Allah Rakha Institute of Music.
As I, too, travel around the world, I inevitably take part in tabla
discussions of Zakirji’s latest accomplishments, and his strength and
great skill as a master of tabla.^5 There are many stories circulating
about his “otherworldly” abilities as an artist and composer. Many
students, whether they are from the Punjab school or not, take up
tabla after seeing him perform in concert. For many young boys in In-
dia and elsewhere, he has become a tabla idol, worshiped daily as the
ideal tabla player. From among those who follow his career in North
America and Europe, I have heard some refer to him as “my favorite
rock star.” I traced some of the fiction surrounding Zakirji to stories
recounted in Mickey Hart’s Drumming at the Edge of Magic: A Jour-
ney into the Spirit of Percussion ( 1990 ). Hart recounts in his text Za-
kirji’s stories of his own apprenticeship that includes a chilla, a kind
of ritual retreat instigated by the master where the shishya is secluded