Zakir Hussain Read online

  I did know that film lyricists were aware of rhythm, but I wondered if they knew about taal and rhythm cycles. What did metre mean to them? I could tell they knew all that, but I was never close enough to a poet to ask about the extent of their understanding.

  Rind jo mujhko samajhte hain unhen hosh nahin

  Maikada saaz hoon main maikada bardosh nahin

  [Those who think I am a drunkard are not in their senses I visit the tavern but do not carry it around with me]

  This verse is by Jigar Moradabadi and my thought was—is this couplet in a particular rhythm cycle? Does that apply here? When I got to know Gulzar Sahib and Javed Sahib better, it was wonderful to discover they were complete rhythmists. It is amazing to see how the words they write fit rhythmically on the tune, how mathematically lined up their lyrics are.

  Lyricists clearly have a total understanding of rhythm and rhythm cycles. Think of Raja Mehdi Ali Khan Sahib’s ‘Aap ki nazron ne samjha pyaar ke kaabil mujhe, dil ki ye dhadkan thehar jaa, mil gayi manzil mujhe.’ [Your eyes tell me that you think me worthy of being loved. O heart, do not beat so fast, now that I have found purpose in life.] What a beautiful song. As soon as I heard it, the seven-beat metre was obvious to me. The seven-beat metre goes like—ta ra ta ta ta ra ta—ta (one). ‘Aap-ki-nazron-ne-samjha…’

  NMK: That’s such a wonderful composition by Madan Mohan and how beautifully Lata Mangeshkar has sung it. I’d like to clarify—does the understanding of rhythm not come from the composer when the lyricist is writing to the tune?

  ZH: Yes, when writing on a tune, but finding the right words that allow that rhythmic flow is where a great lyricist comes in. The words must have meaning and they should not sound robotic just because you need to get the rhythm right.

  I think poets and lyricists are artists of the highest order. Some of them can also sing beautifully in tarannum. Javed Sahib does not sing in tarannum, but when he recites a line, you can hear the rhythm. When it comes to Gulzar Sahib, his writing does not indicate rhythm in a transparent way. But the verses have rhythm: ‘Tu jo mera beta hota, main tujhe Pinocchio pukarta’ [If you were my son, I would call you Pinocchio].

  We once worked on a project together, a dance musical called Pinocchio. It was performed in Delhi and I composed the songs, and Taufiq assisted me with the music. Gulzar Sahib’s words were simple and clear, but for a moment I was stumped. I was teaching in Princeton at the time, and I called him up in Bombay. I said: ‘Gulzar Sahib, just read the lines to me, don’t sing, just read please.’ When he read the lines to me, the melody and metre was clear and the rhythm was right there. So I wrote a tune on his words.

  NMK: Your love of Urdu must be because it was the language you spoke at home. You said when you dream of your parents, they speak in Urdu. Did you talk to them in Urdu?

  ZH: It was always in Urdu. The Urdu newspaper Inquilab was delivered to the house every morning and my father and mother would sit and read it over a cup of tea. They were fluent in Urdu but they spoke Punjabi at home. I do not speak much Punjabi. I used to hang out with my Hindi- and Urdu-speaking friends. The whole neighbourhood of Mahim spoke Urdu, because the majority of people living there were Muslims.

  NMK: Your parents were clearly a big influence on you. Did you want to be like your father—not only in the way you played the tabla, but also in personality?

  ZH: I have spoken about this many times. I understood at one point in my life that I should not try to be like my father. I realized this when I heard a comment Abba made to a friend of his. I was in my twenties, and had already played professionally for about thirteen years. I had even played with Abba on the stage. At the end of a concert, one of his friends said: ‘Oh, that was so beautiful. You must be so proud. Your son plays exactly like you.’ The friend meant it as a compliment, but Abba said: ‘I hope he does not play like me because I have achieved what I had to.’

  These were his words in Urdu: ‘Mera toh ho gaya Ustad Allarakha, abhi doosra Ustad Allarakha toh copy hoga … fayda kya hai? Main toh yeh dua karunga ke mera ladka mujhse achchha bajaaye, kuchh aur kare, kuchh naya kare, aage jaaye’ [My statement of music as Ustad Allarakha has my stamp on it. It is recognized. What’s the point of my son doing the same thing? I pray he’ll play better than me, do something new and different—take his playing forward].

  Abba’s words stuck in my head. At first I thought: ‘Oh, he doesn’t want me to be like him.’ I felt a little sad and a little hurt, but it made sense when I understood why I enjoyed my father’s tabla recordings, or the recordings of Kishan Maharajji, or Ahmedjaan Thirakwa Khansahib. Although Abba’s guru, Mian Qadir Baksh, was one of the greatest legends of his time, I could hear that my father did not sound anything like Mian-ji. Abba was his own sound, his own expression and his own man. He had found his personal way of communicating and connecting and had spent years developing those skills. That is why it was important for him that I should not be his carbon copy because copies get thrown in the waste bin. I had to find my own expression. It’s like the five hundred singers who imitate Lata, Rafi, Mukesh or Kishore. They’ll always remain imitations.

  Though I admired the skills of great tabla players, I did not pay attention to something that was staring at me in the face—the fact that each of them had their own voice—they were all different.

  My father taught my two brothers, Fazal and Taufiq, and me, and also all his students that we had to find our own style. He was very comfortable with the idea that his sons would not be like him—unlike many masters in India who are hell-bent on training their students to be in their image. He set us on a path on which we found ourselves musically and instilled in us the idea that it is not wrong to assimilate, analyse and emulate when necessary.

  NMK: Your father seemed to have been open to many possibilities.

  ZH: That’s right, he was. That’s why he could do so many different things. One of his early jobs was at All India Radio in Bombay where he was employed as an A-grade classical singer, composer and tabla player. He sang playback for films, and had even sung for Prithviraj Kapoor.

  As far as I know, in the early 1950s, Abba was the only Indian classical musician who composed for films. He used the name A.R. Qureshi for the screen and wrote music for about thirty-six Hindi movies, including films like Sabak, Madari, Khandaan and Maa Baap. Scoring for films made him a more complete musician, perhaps more so than some of his peers. In later years, the sarangi player Ram Narayanji, Shivkumar Sharmaji, Hariprasad Chaurasiaji, Rais Khansahib and other musicians also started working for films.

  NMK: Was he attached to a particular film studio?

  ZH: He was on the payroll of Mohan Studio and used to go there almost every day. The studio was quite far from our home in Mahim. When you got off the local train at Andheri, you had to take a little road going east—in those days it was a little road. You could see open fields, trees and forests for about a mile or two and Mohan Studio was down that way. Further south was Natraj Studio where Shakti Samantaji and other film-makers had their offices. Many film-makers worked in Andheri. In fact, Mohan Studio used to be called the K. Asif Studio and that was where the famous Sheesh Mahal set in Mughal-e-Azam was built and the song ‘Jab pyaar kiya toh darna kya’ was shot.

  NMK: Bimal Roy had his offices at Mohan Studio as well.

  ZH: Yes, I believe so. Did I tell you that I auditioned for young Prince Salim’s role in Mughal-e-Azam? The role that eventually went to Jalal Agha.

  My father and Asif Sahib knew each other well. The famous Kathak dancer Sitara Deviji was his first wife, and Abba and she were friends. My father had accompanied her on the tabla many times. I am sure you know that Asif Sahib’s second wife, Nigar Sultana, played the role of Bahaar in Mughal-e-Azam.

  NMK: Yes. What do you remember of the audition?

  ZH: Abba’s man Friday, Shaukat, took me to Mohan Studio one day. Shaukat has passed away now. Besides working for my father, he would moonlight as a film extra. So Shaukat took me to see Asif Sahib because
he had asked Abba to send me over. I remember they were filming on the Sheesh Mahal set, and I met Dilip Kumar Sahib there. He looked at me, cupped his hands around my face and lifted my chin so that he could take a closer look. He turned to Shaukat and said: ‘Asif ke paas le jaana’ [Take him to Asif]. So that was that. It was hardly a real audition. I don’t think there were proper auditions in those days. Someone just looked at an aspiring actor and said: ‘Isko le lete hain’ [Let’s take him]. No one used to ask the actor to read lines or anything like that. That’s not how it was done.

  Asif Sahib and his team gave me a toffee and asked me to go and play while they talked. I don’t know what the outcome was but apparently my father had a change of heart and said: ‘Nahin, yeh actor nahin banega, yeh music karega, musician hoga’ [No, he will not become an actor, he’ll play music and become a musician].

  NMK: I interviewed the composer Naushad Ali in 1988 and he told me how he managed to get Bade Ghulam Ali Khan to sing in Mughal-e-Azam for the now famous love scene between Salim and Anarkali. Naushad Sahib seemed to suggest that classical musicians had to be persuaded to sing in films. Did you sense a divide between the classical music world and the film world?

  ZH: No. I don’t like putting things into slots and I’m glad the seriousness of being a classical musician was not imposed on me as a young man.

  NMK: But, of course, your father was composing for films—so that divide did not occur to him either. I know that Ali Akbar Khan played the sarod for the famous Lata Mangeshkar song ‘Suno chhoti si gudiya ki lambi kahaani’ from the film Seema. Do you remember the other songs with his contribution?

  ZH: He played the sarod for ‘O jaanewaale ruk ja koi dam’ in Bimal Roy’s Devdas, and composed music for other films, including Chetan Anand’s Aandhiyan, Merchant/Ivory’s first film, The Householder, Satyajit Ray’s Devi and Tapan Sinha’s Hungry Stones.

  I believe that Ali Akbar Khansahib enjoyed that part of his life because it was a creative process which required a different way of thinking and involved people who were interesting—film people were not like some of the old ustads and gurus, paan-chewing and talking in a certain way. It was a whole different world and it was a lot of fun for him. Film songs also meant playing short pieces, following the tune, enhancing the words as much as possible to bring out their meaning—it’s a challenge to say a lot in a short piece.

  NMK: We must talk about Jaidev, Ali Akbar Khan’s former student. His sarod playing and compositions were stunning. I am thinking of his extraordinary songs in Hum Dono.

  ZH: Just like our former neighbour and the other great composer, Sajjad Hussain Sahib, Jaidev Sahib had the reputation of being difficult to work with.

  Jaidev Sahib was one of the best composers Hindi cinema has ever had. His songs were off the beaten track. He preferred to compose on the lyrics, so that he could give the words the right musical shape. Think of Sahir’s ‘Main zindagi ka saath nibhaata chala gaya’ [I have flowed with what life offers me]. The words have the proper melodic intonation. I just don’t know from where Jaidev Sahib got that talent, because you have to know poetry well. He composed amazing songs in Hum Dono, Mujhe Jeene Do and Reshma aur Shera.

  Hum Dono was one of those films where the music, direction, photography, the acting, everything just came together. When all the stars align, you get a great movie. It has one of the greatest bhajans ever written, ‘Allah tero naam’. Another beautiful song that I like is ‘Raat bhi hai kuchh bheegi bheegi’ from Mujhe Jeene Do.

  Jaidev Sahib studied the sarod with Ali Akbar Khansahib. When the latter came to Bombay and was composing music for Chetan Anand’s Aandhiyan, Jaidev Sahib was his assistant. When Khansahib moved on from Navketan, Jaidev Sahib continued working there and became S.D. Burman’s assistant. Kudos to Chetan Sahib, Dev Sahib and Sunil Dutt Sahib for asking him to write music for their films. I truly believe that Jaidev Sahib was an underrated genius.

  There was also Roshanji whose songs in Barsaat ki Raat, Taj Mahal, etc., were big hits, but he was not given due recognition either. Neither was Madan Mohanji. Many music directors of that era were exceptional composers and knew a lot about Indian music.

  NMK: The current generation of music lovers adore the three composers that you have just mentioned: Jaidev, Roshan and Madan Mohan. I think their work is appreciated even more so today. Their compositions have a gentle melodic feel that never overwhelms the words, and yet have tunes you can never forget.

  When did your father stop composing for films? And why?

  ZH: Do you remember that we talked about the time when I was born and when my father was very ill? Well, Abba started to get well, this was sometime in 1954 or ’55, and that’s when he decided to stop working for films. His first love was always the tabla and the Indian classical music world, and he was flooded with offers for concert work. Many musicians wanted him to accompany them. So Abba started doing that.

  When he was at Mohan Studio, he had to work there every day. But if he played on the stage, it involved only about twelve days a month. On top of that, he could make ten times the money that he made as a film composer. So, for about ten years, he toured all around the world with Ravi Shankarji. They went everywhere, including Japan and Europe.

  NMK: So was it your mother, Bavi Begum, who looked after the family?

  ZH: Yes, she looked after the house and us. My mother was very forward-thinking and more grounded than Abba. She wanted her children to be educated—even though she herself could not speak English. Most of the children in Mahim were sent to madrasas to study the Quran. But Amma had a very different vision of our future. She made sure that my sisters, Khurshid Apa and Razia Apa, studied in an Urdu-medium school, the Anjuman-e-Islam, whereas most girls in the Muslim community in our area, especially in the 1950s, were uneducated.

  I was the only kid in the whole neighbourhood, for example, who went to an English-medium school, St Michael’s High School. I don’t know why but Amma felt that I must study English and it was she who made sure that I attend school every day. She used to argue with Abba and insist: ‘Nahi, usko school jaane do, bahut ho gaya riyaaz, usko padhai karne do’ [No more, let him go to school. Enough practice, he must study].

  Abba’s family was not educated and he was not particularly keen about my schooling. He would tell my mother: ‘Arey tu usko kyun school bhej rahi hai? Woh toh tabla bajaayega, usko riyaaz karne do. School mein jaa ke kya karega?’ [Why are you sending him to school? He’s going to play the tabla. Let him practice. Why waste time at school?]

  At one stage, Amma even sent me to stay with a very dear friend of hers so that I would be away from my father’s influence and study instead of playing the tabla. It was crazy. I was under fifteen, in the ninth or tenth standard, when Amma thought I had to focus on my studies, so I was sent to the home of Bibi Bai Almas. I lived there for about a year.

  The intriguing thing about Bibi Bai Almas was her lineage. She had African ancestry and her family had settled in Hyderabad and Gujarat. She came from a more liberal kind of an Islamic background and because of that she had even acted in some early stunt films. She did not change her name for the screen and was known as Bibi Bai Almas. I have not seen any of her movies because she had retired by the time I was sent to stay with her. Her daughter Habiba Rahman is now working as a film choreographer.

  NMK: What a small world! I interviewed Habiba Rahman in the early 1990s for a documentary series that I was making for Channel 4. She seemed lovely.

  ZH: She is. We grew up together. Habiba was learning Kathak from Sitara Deviji and Bibi Almas was also teaching dance. Some of her dance students would come for lessons to Bibi’s house, so I played the tabla for them. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise, and came in handy when I ended up playing for great dancers like Sitara Deviji and Birju Maharajji. I was already familiar with the material.

  I remember Bibi Bai was very strict. We had to be up at five in the morning—anyway I was used to getting up early—we would say our namaz, read the Q
uran, have breakfast and get ready for school.

  NMK: You said you were used to waking up early. Can you describe a typical day when you were say ten or twelve and living at home with your parents?

  ZH: My father would wake me up at 3 a.m. He sat with me like we’re sitting now, and he would teach me vocally. We didn’t play. We just sang rhythms (bols/rhythmic syllables), back and forth. He would tell me this composition is by this master or that master. You could see the devotion on his face in the way that he spoke about the old masters. It was touching, and thanks to him, I developed a deep reverence for music and a deep respect for the old masters.

  That’s how we spent the hours between three and six in the morning. Then my mother would pull me away from him, give me breakfast and send me to the madrasa to study the Quran. Across the street from the madrasa was St Michael’s High School, and I would head there. We sang hymns at assembly and then we’d go to our classrooms.

  I had lunch at school and came home at around three in the afternoon. I practised what my father had taught me that morning and when I had finished practising, I played with some friends in the neighbourhood. Then I’d come home, do my homework, eat and off to bed at about 10 p.m. That was more or less my daily routine.

  NMK: If you woke up at 3 a.m., that means you had only five hours sleep—not very much for a growing child.

  ZH: That’s about all I got. Five hours. I’m catching up on sleep now. [both laugh]

  NMK: Were you a happy kid?

  ZH: I think I was quite happy. I was asked if I really wanted to study the tabla. And it’s only when Abba saw my interest had become an obsession that he started getting me up at three in the morning. I mean how many kids get to hang out with their dads? I didn’t see many kids in the neighbourhood hanging out with their fathers. Their dads were hanging around the paanwala’s shop, enjoying a smoke. Most kids spent time playing because they did not have anything to do. At least I had things to do. There was purpose from a very young age.