

From the village Ghagwal, near Samba, about 40 km from Jammu, Allarakha Qureshi got his hands on Tabla as a child musical prodigy.
Born on April 29, 1919, in this small border village on the Indian side of Jammu and Kashmir, Alla Rakha, as he is popularly known, became a world-renowned tabla player. During his concert performances in India and abroad, he was a frequent accompanist of sitar maestro Ravi Shanker.
Allarakha’s mother tongue was Dogri, as he belonged to the Muslim Dogra community of the Jammu region.
He started playing Tabla at a very early stage of his childhood. But his father disapproved of his interest. Finding some hard times to indulge in his passion, Allarakha ran away from his home to stay with his uncle in Gurdaspur, Punjab, when he was only 12.
His regimen of practice and dedication was legendary: hours upon hours of hard, disciplined training that later paid off.
The young Allarakha began his musical career as an accompanist in Lahore and then as a staffer with All India Radio in 1936. Later, he moved to Bombay in 1940, playing the station’s first-ever tabla solo and elevating the instrument’s position.
As a vocalist in classical Indian music, he started composing music for films under A. R. Qureshi, scoring the music for 23 films between 1943 and 1964.
However, his main interest remained with Tabla. In addition to Ravi Shanker, he played with musical stalwarts Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and Vilayat Khan.
As a soloist tabla player, Alla Rakha was a master in the art of percussion. The New York Times called him “the most important tabla drummer of his generation in his obituary.”
Alla Rakha was married to his cousin Bavi Begum. One of his three sons, Zakir Hussain, is a world-renowned tabla player.
Ustad Alla Rakha died on February 3, 2000, in Bombay. Growing up as a farm boy from Samba, Alla Rakha is a legend in tabla percussion music.
Published courtesy of Promodpuri.com