In a deeply personal exhibition, spanning over four decades of photographing the legendary tabla maestro Zakir Hussain, acclaimed artist Dayanita Singh explores mentorship, discipline and the act of lifelong learning. Drawing from her extensive archives—including unseen negatives, book dummies and museum structures—the project is both a memorial and a meditation on the creative exchange between teacher and student.

Words & images by Dayanita Singh

“For how long will you keep photographing Zakir ji?” asked someone at the opening of the Museum of Tanpura exhibition at the Bengal Biennale. I said, “As long as I live.”

Zakir ji was to come and perform for the closing of the exhibition on 5th January 2025. Instead the gallery at the Indian Museum in Kolkata turned into a memorial to him, white jasmine strings garlanding the pages of the Zakir Hussain Maquette. I did not know how to face the people who had gathered to hear me speak. I turned my back to them, trying not to cry in public, and the guidance came: ‘Come on—get on with it.’ And so I did.

Forty-three years earlier, I had been stopped from photographing him at a concert in Ahmedabad, and I fell in front of a hall full of people. I waited for Zakir ji to come out and said, “Mr. Hussain, I am a young student today, but someday I will be an important photographer, and then we will see.” More recently, at the launch of his maquette at Artisans’ in Mumbai, Zakir ji said he saw his own 18-year-old self in that moment, when he had left for the US with $8 in his pocket. And that feeling of wanting to do something but not knowing what; maybe he recognised that in me? He invited me to photograph him the next morning while he did his riyaaz.

That moment changed my life. I started photography with Zakir Hussain—I became a photographer because of him. I often wonder how different life would have been had the organiser of the concert not pushed me. I am ever grateful to him. His push changed my life.

Zakir ji became my mentor—I learned rigour from him. Riyaaz was, as he said, when that rigour became like one’s breath. That single-minded focus to know one’s medium like the back of one’s hand, before even thinking of challenging it; to recognise the importance of mastering one’s instrument and yet being a student to learn more. I watched Zakir ji transform the tabla—from an accompanist’s instrument to a solo instrument—while never forgetting its significance as the sangat. And I watched him do it with utter humility. At the same launch Zakir ji said, “I’m still trying to figure out what I am doing. I have hesitated to write a memoir, because I don’t think of myself as important enough for that to happen. It took me 20 years to be able to make my first record. I’ve never felt that I have something important to say, I’m just having a great time in this relationship with my music and I don’t know if it even means anything to anybody else.”

Zakir ji led me into the world of Indian classical music. One of the highlights was the annual bus tour that had been conceived by Vijay Kichlu and run by Krishna Choudhury. Imagine watching antakshari with Zakir ji and Shiv ji [Shiv Kumar Sharma] on one side and Ajoy Chakrabarty and Shujaat Khan on the other, with Jog saab [V. G. Jog] and Girija Devi keeping score. I think it’s that tour that sowed the seeds of dissemination that have come to shape my work. The fact that all these great musicians would travel for three weeks on a bus, staying in school dormitories, to take their music to new audiences in small towns. I think we were somewhere in Malda, when the audience tore Zakir ji’s clothes.

I listened to all the stories they would share about their gurus. Often a problem arose: how to sleep on the bus in which mattresses had replaced the seats, and how not to point my feet at any of the gurus, our fellow passengers. Once, Rashid Khan and I made recordings of all the snoring on the bus as we could not sleep anyway.

Most significantly, Zakir ji taught me what it means to commit to the life of an artist, where no distractions are allowed. I don’t think he did a 40- day chilla (a state of complete isolation to be one with music) as was the custom, his entire life was a chilla and somewhere, I was fortunate enough to imbibe that. In fact, once when Hari ji had agreed to teach me the flute and I was to have my gandabandhan ceremony, Zakir ji stopped it, saying, “Will you be able to give it 18 hours a day? Otherwise, don’t waste Hari ji’s time. You have decided to be a photographer—then give that everything.” When people ask for my CV, I always say I studied at the Zakir Hussain academy of focus!

In 2011, Zakir ji messaged to say how proud he was to see me in the Venice Biennale. I could not help saying, “See, even I am a star now.” He replied, “I hope you never start to believe that, because that is the day it will be over.” That is the privilege of having Zakir ji as a mentor. And it was that same voice that guided me through the editing process for this memorial exhibition; without a doubt the most difficult edit of my life.

In 1986, I had published my book Zakir Hussain. In 2019, instead of reprinting the rare book, Gerhard Steidl decided to print a facsimile of my hand-made dummy— Zakir Hussain Maquette. Some images of Zakir ji had appeared in Museum of Chance (2013), Let’s See (2022) and most recently in Museum of Tanpura (2025), but I had never gone back to my original contact sheets. And this was a Pandora’s box,  as archives often are. One never knows where they will lead and what they will stir.

To look through an archive of 43 years felt like it would be too overwhelming to get through. I decided to let the images speak to me rather than be guided by my memories of making them. I scanned hundreds of negatives—dusty, many with long scratches from when we used to buy 400-foot rolls and cut them into 36-frame rolls, which were hastily developed.

The analogue contact sheets started to reveal many new connections. I, for one, did not realise how much I had photographed Zakir ji and Shiv ji over the years—they had a special bond that is so apparent in the images. Then there were the photos of his daughter Anisa when she was maybe four years old, and photographs of her wedding to Taylor. Time seemed to rush through and pause in the contact sheets. John McLaughlin and Shakti in 1986? And then in Delhi in 2023, which was sadly the last time I photographed Zakir ji. And so many images of him pulling Vikku Vinayakram’s cheeks in different situations. An entire section of my mother and Zakir ji—he used to call her Nony Mom. That bond between him and Birju Maharaj ji, onstage and in the green room. Maybe photographs have their own memories that may not correspond to those of the makers.

The Zakir Hussain museum will include in it the Simla House archive, the Green Room archive and the Bus archive. But then there is the Shiv ji series, the Vikku set; there is even the record cover I designed for HMV, as well as the full-page newspaper review of my book from 1986. This museum will be forever pregnant with possible museums.

At this point, it has two museum structures, six wall panels and a storage unit. My most ambitious museum so far—and the most heartbreaking to build.

Showing this for the first time at the gallery at the NCPA is especially poignant, as a few years ago we had celebrated Abbaji’s 100th birthday with a parade with flags of his portraits down Marine Drive—Hari ji, Shiv ji, Zakir ji… Zakir ji had called to say he wanted an exhibition on Abbaji. I dropped everything and made it happen,  in this same gallery. And once again, I dropped everything to make this memorial exhibition in time for Zakir ji’s first barsi. The exhibition will run from 15th December until 3rd February—from Zakir ji’s barsi until Abbaji’s barsi.

This article was originally published in the December 2025 issue of ON Stage.