Photo Courtesy: therevolverclub.com
Allah Rakha saab alias Abbaji of Late Zakir bhai , was such a lovely person that unknown person would also fall in love with him. We used to meet him in 1998-99 period at his Tabla Class Near Shivaji Park in Dadar where my son and his colleague Sanket Acharya used to go from Nasik every week.
He was such down to earth person that before beginning his class, he used to greet us with good smile on face and used to ask every time “KAISE HO”. He would also tell us that take Batata Wada in near by canteen as you people come from long distance .
However, While teaching students, He was very strict. He would ask his pupils to do rigorous RIYAJ seven to eight hours a day. Later his students became well known in field of TABLA Masters like Aditya Kalyanpur, Zakir Hussein (his own son), Anuradha Pal, Yogesh Samsi to name a few .
Photo Courtesy: allarakhafoundation.org
Ustad Alla Rakha was born on 29th April 1919 at Ghagwal in Jammu province in British india, (today located in Sambha district of Jammu & Kashmir state). He left home in early age to learn Tabla under Mia Kadir Bakhsh. Mian Kadir Bakhsh, who had no sons, formally adopted Alla Rakha and called him the next head of the PUNJAB GHARANA of tabla players. Ustad Alla Rakha also specialised in Hindustani classic music. Today, he is widely revered as one of history’s most iconic players of the tabla.
He was married at early age to Bavi Begum. The couple had three sons namely Zakir Hussein, Fazal Qureshi, Taufik Qureshi and two daughters Khurshid and Raziya. He had nine grandchildren. Allah Rakha had a third daughter named Roohi Bano (1951–2019) who was born in Pakiostan and achieved a “legendary” status in television and film acting in that country.
Roohi Bano in a TV Serial.
He gave music to some Bollywood movies under name of A.R. Kureshi. Before that, he joined All India Radio at Lahore as a staff artist in 1936. In two year he was transferred to Bombay as a percussionist. In 1943, he left AIR job to work independently for music. He toured USA with Ravi Shankar, famous sitarist. He teamed with Sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan. He was largely responsible for introducing tabla to the Western audience. Also collaborated with jazz drummer Buddy Rich to make album Rich a la Rakha(1968) a pioneer experiment of cross cultural musical fusion.
In India he was famous devoted teacher of Tabla, so he started Alla Rakha Institute of Music in 1985 in Mumbai to popularise Tabla. His elder son Zakir bhai became international Tabla Maestro. In honour of his contribution in field of performing arts Alla Rakha received two prestigious awards the Padmashree (1977) and Sangeet Natak Acadamy award in 1982.
Due to old age he had reduced giving himself stress of Tabla practice. And on 3rd Feb 2000, he left for heavenly abode.
