Renowned Tabla maestro Zakir Hussain is no more. He was born on March 9, 1951, in Mumbai. The Table prodigy was son of legendary table master Ustaad Allah Rakha Khan.

• He earned his doctorate degree in music from the University of Washington.
• He won a Grammy Award for a collaboration with drummer Mickey Hart for Planet Drum.
• In 1991 Zakir Hussain conferred with the Sangeet Natak Akademi  Award.
• Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri in 1988, the Padma Bhushan in 2002 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2023.
• The former US President Barack Obama in 2016 invited him,The  first Indian musician, to the White House

The history of tabla is unknown, but majority historians says  it was invented around 1738 by poet, singer, drummer, and scholar Amir Khusro. This led to invention of a new music style called Khayal.

The “tabla  is a pair of drums. It consists of a small right-hand drum called “dayan” which literally means right and a larger metal one called “bayan” which literally means left. The tabla is the large black spot (called “siyahi ) on each of the playing surfaces. The “siyahi” is a mixture of gum, soot, and iron filings. Its function is to create the bell-like timbre that is a characteristic of the instrument.

The oldest Table gharana is of Dilli and started by Sidhar Khan Dhadi and since then, India has had many tabla maestros

FAMOUS ONE

Anindo Chatterjee is a tabla player of the Farukhabad Gharana and is famous for his impeccable precision, rhythms, and presentation

Pt. Swapan Chaudhuri  A part of the Lucknow Gharana, is a brilliant tabla artist

Pt. Kumar Bose is one of the most famous tabla players of the Banaras gharana.

Another maestro from the Banaras Gharana was Pt. Kishan Maharaj