Tabla makers fondly recall Ustad Zakir Hussain’s Kolkata connection, polite demeanour

KOLKATA: ‘Bahut Achcha’, an oft-used compound by Ustad Zakir Hussain to express appreciation for others, happens to be the same set of words Shyamal Kumar Das, a tabla maker in south Kolkata, would like to remember and describe the legend with.

A chance meeting with the maestro at a concert in Netaji Indoor Stadium over a quarter of a century ago enabled Das to forge a long-standing friendship with the master of rhythm, who he recalled as “mild-mannered and polite” and “never spoke down or patronised the craft of others”.

Das, who runs a popular musical instrument shop, Narayan Badya Bhandar, in Chetla area, had landed up at the venue with a pair of tabla as gift for Hussain and managed an audience with him in the green room before he was slated to perform at the concert organised by a Bengali film industry body.

Source: PTI News

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