Classical music titans clash

Page

sheetal

@sheetald

Rocker

Posted: 19 years ago

It was a rare event seeing the two classical music maestros sitar ace Pandit Ravi Shankar and tabla whiz Ustad Zakir Hussain sharing the same platform together after a long time. But the event turned to be a shock when Pandit Ravi Shankar accused Zakir Hussain calling him 'unprofessional and immature'. Zakir was blamed for his conduct while performing with him at Shanmukhananda Hall in Mumbai last week.

The 3,000 music lovers was taken aback when Zakir Hussain pulled the microphone from its stand in front of his tablas as he was not happy with the quality of the tabla sound. He had motioned the technician about it that the volume of his microphone should be adjusted, but when nothing was done about it, he got upset. Panditji was playing 'Maaj Khamaaj' then and the audience gathered there could only hear Ravi Shankar and his daughter Anoushka playing. After they repeatedly chanted 'We want tabla', Zakir started playing again putting the microphone back in its place.

Ravi Shankar says shockingly, "I have known him since he was a kid. I did not expect this from him. These days some artistes play fusion music and suchlike and are used to loud music. As an instrumentalist, I like the sound of the accompanists to be about 20% lower than the volume of my sitar. This is standard practice. If at all Zakir had any problem, he should have indicated it to me. But his behaviour was totally unjustified."