Tabla maestro Zakir Hussain is, at 48, the poster boy of classical Indian music: amazingly innovative, hugely popular, critically acclaimed.

On February 3, Zakir brings together in Mumbai a fabulous clutch of star performers from all over India and the world to pay a daylong musical tribute to his famous father Alla Rakha on the first anniversary of his death. In conversation with Pritish Nandy.

How can one fight back the increasing trend towards the sidelining of classical music in today's world?

Many young musicians have successfully done this simply by opening themselves up to the media, by reaching out to their listeners. You cannot expect to only play for yourself any more in this age and time. You must reach out to others, try out new things. You must challenge established dogmas. You must learn to innovate. I guess therein lies the real answer.

Musicians, however good they may be, can no more afford to be ascetics. They must come out and act as role models if they expect people to listen to them. There are a lot of new, young musicians around who are capable of giving guys like me a run for my money.

If you are looking at tabla players alone, there must be anything between 300 to 400 brilliant young upstarts around. That is why I make sure I am around every season, for at least three months a year, usually around this time, performing all over the country. I have no option but to ward off their challenge. For they are very good in what they do.

Why do you think I bust my buns doing concerts in the remotest parts of India, where one gets no money nor even expects it? All I ask them to do is pay my musicians. You have to keep doing this to remain with your listeners. I go deep into Marathwada at times. They are all farmers there. They come after 6 in the evening, having done their hard day's work. They light up their hookahs and listen to us, often in open spaces under the starlight.

You talk of innovation. But innovation drew so much of attack on Ravi Shankar? The purists were furious that he took so many liberties with the classical form!

True. But times have changed Pritishji, and even the critics have changed. Today the classical musician must be smartly marketed. He has to be another Shah Rukh Khan if he wants to stay in business. You must remember that Ravi Shankar redesigned the entire packaging of Indian classical music and made it into a popular, hugely successful and entertaining art form and history will have no option but to remember him for that. He and Ali Akbar Khan were like Gods in those days. Remote and powerful figures whom no one could reach out to.

The younger lot today is far more accessible. You must be able to touch them, feel them, talk to them. You must share a rapport with them. That is the key to everything. They must be articulate. They must look smart, presentable. Not chew paan all the time. The whole ball game has changed. We have to be seen at the right places. We must be covered by the mainstream media. We must get the kind of visibility required in our age and time, where global audiences are impacted by the popularity we command at home.

Does classical Indian music sell overseas any more?

Yes, sometimes. Sometimes quite well, in fact. I do anything between, say, 60 to 80 concerts a year in Europe and the US where people actually pay tickets to listen. These concerts are not like concerts here, where organisers take a short cut by resorting to corporate sponsorships. Here, sponsors pay the entire money and pick up all the seats. As a result, no one needs to sell tickets. Who buys tickets in Delhi's champagne circuit?

Overseas, people actually buy season tickets and go to listen to concerts. The Carnegie Hall Series, say. Or the Queen Elizabeth Hall Series. There are several extremely successful, regularly held concert series in different parts of the world where people pay to listen to classical music. They listen even to things like opera because it is the in thing to do. Carreras, Pavarotti, Placido Domingo: they all draw huge crowds at their concerts.

Anything up to 50 per cent of the costs are recovered from ticket sales out there.

What are actual record sales like?

Shakti's last album sold 180,000 copies. The latest one has sold over 100,00 copies since September. That is not bad by any standards. I am the president of a record company called Moment Records, which is a wellknown independent label. It has managed to successfully put two albums among the top five in the world music charts.

The Rhythm Experience was also shortlisted for the Grammys while The Best of Shakti did remarkably well in terms of sales. So, I would say, it is possible to sell classical music if you make a sincere effort to put it together in a way that audiences like and enjoy listening to. It is the packaging. The talent is already there.

Talent like?

There are many. There's Ronu Mazumdar, who is an outstanding flautist. There's Debashis Bhattacharya, a classical Indian guitar player, Rakesh Chaurasia, Hariji's nephew, Vishwamohan Bhatt whom we all know now, Niladri Kumar, this fantastic young sitar player from Bombay. There are many more. All extremely talented people. They know the global music scene; they listen to jazz, rock, fusion, reggae; they can read Western notations. They have everything going for them.

Look at Talvin (Singh)! He is a fabulous tabla player. Look at Amjad Ali Khan's sons or Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma's. These are the kind of people who will determine the future of Indian music. They are all very capable, very talented. There are a lot of crossovers as well. Look how successful Sultan Khan, a pure classicist, has become today. Piya Basanti has sold over 5 lakh units!

In other words, marketing is the key to keeping this kind of classical music alive? Is that what you are saying?

What I am saying is that the world has changed and if classical music has to find an audience, it must make a serious effort to redefine itself and, if necessary, even recreate itself to find young, new, live audiences. You cannot depend on the past. You must design your future in a way that works.

What are you doing towards that?

I do all kinds of things. Right now I am scoring the music for Rahul Bose's film. I do a lot of concerts whenever I am here. Sometimes 40 to 50 in two or three months.

I keep coming back to be with my audiences. I take music to the people. I am holding a musical tribute for my father on February 3. It will be in many ways a unique event. It starts at 6 in the morning with a prayer and 40 tabla players from all over India performing at the Tata Centre. Then we have Kishori Amonkar, Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma and me. Then breakfast. Then a seminar that continues till we break for lunch. At 5 pm a percussions group will perform in the courtyard of the Tata Theatre. At 6, there will be Sultan Khan and me. At 9.30 it all culminates in Kala Ghoda with a nightlong concert where some of the finest musicians will perform open air. This is my way of paying a tribute to my father as well as this great city.

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