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The drum of many colours

ANJANA RAJAN

In the ongoing series on accompanists, meet table exponent Rafi Uddin Sabri.

LETTING HIS FINGERS DO THE TALKING Rafi Uddin Sabri in New Delhi. PHOTO: V.V. KRISHNAN

In the days before cable television overran home entertainment in the cities, the joke about the news used to be that all was well with the world, as far as Doordarshan was concerned. The visual potential of the television medium was not lavishly exploited, and the constraints of being a Government-controlled national broadcaster ensured that the news often lacked the punch and currency of a normal news telecast. The first televised news magazine "The World This Week" brought a whiff of fresh air to Indian television journalism in 1987. What concerns us here, though, is not the quality of the programme, but its title music, that set a trend in collaborations between musicians of various genres. The music was by Loy Mendonza, then a relative newcomer on the scene, and the striking tabla accompaniment, that set fingers tapping, was by the young Rafi Uddin Sabri. Rafi has come a long way from that introduction to collaborative music, but he retains his enthusiasm for things new, as also his loyalty for classical tenets he has inherited.

This week, his talents will be put to use when he accompanies the great Sufi singer Abida Parveen on February 6 in the closing recital of the Jehan-E-Khusrau festival, the annual extravaganza organised by Muzaffar Ali in collaboration with Delhi Tourism at Humayun's Tomb. "I am very happy," says an enthusiastic Rafi, who will also be playing with Raza Ali on Saturday, when the festival opens.Great grandson of Ustad Karam Baksh Khan and grandson of Dada Azim Baksh Khan, Rafi comes from a formidable lineage of percussion and melody. While his grandfather and great grandfather were court musicians and famed for their expertise in the tabla and pakhawaj, his uncle Ustad Nasir Ahmed Baba was an acclaimed harmonium player.

Now teaching several loyal students at his Saaz-O-Awaaz music school, a branch of the Saaz-O-Awaaz society he founded, Rafi has provided tabla accompaniment to the foremost soloists of India and Pakistan. Pandit Jasraj, Mehdi Hasan, Farida Khanum, Ghulam Ali are only a few. Remo Fernandes is an old friend and long-time associate, says Rafi. Among instrumentalists, he has accompanied Shiv Kumar Sharma, Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Amjad Ali Khan, N. Rajam, among others.

Wishing to spread

"I do love playing solo," says Rafi. "But I enjoy accompanying, and my greatest wish is that the main artiste should be pleased with my playing." Rafi is keen to spread, through performance and teaching, the little-known highly classical compositions passed down to him from his forebears. Travelling across the world leaves Rafi little time to spend in Delhi and devote to his students, but he appreciates their loyalty. But travelling has other advantages, as he takes delight in hearing his own recordings made along with Mendonza played as part of the inflight music programmes of Air India and Indian Airlines.

"I have done a number of performances in 2004 and 2005 with Fernando Lamirinas, a Portuguese singer settled in Holland. We are eight musicians from different countries. Our taleem in Indian classical music is such that we can always take in our stride music of other genres. It has always been a pleasurable and easy experience for me, though that is not to say their's is easy music!" Though his experience so far is with pop and jazz musicians, Rafi looks forward to the day he can work with practitioners of Western classical music as well.

World music is a limitless horizon. For now, though, for this young tabla whiz, the world is headquartered right here in Delhi, as the city celebrates the universe of Khusrau.

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