It felt like sun has set Grammy-winner Falu on Zakir Hussain's death

By Yoshita Singh
     New York, Dec 17 (PTI) With Zakir Hussain's death, the 'sun' has set on the world of Indian classical music and there is a vacuum that no one will ever be able to fill, Grammy-award winning Indian-American singer Falu, who once opened for the Tabla maestro, said.
     Hussain, son of legendary tabla master Ustad Allarakha, passed away Sunday (local time) from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in San Francisco at the age of 73.
     “I was shocked. To me he is the sun, ‘Suraj’, of Indian classical music. When I heard the news of his passing away, I felt like the sun has set,” New York-based Falu told PTI in an interview here late on Monday while describing him as “a University of Music, this is somebody who is music.”
     “Indian music has come to a standstill with his passing. He is a force, he defines Indian classical music,” she said adding that not having him feels “incomplete. It is a vacuum that I don’t know how anyone is going to ever fill.”
     Falu, who is also known as Falguni Shah, recalled that she had last met Hussain at the Grammy awards in February this year in Los Angeles where she was nominated in the same category as him. Hussain was nominated in the Best Global Music Performance, a category in which Falu and her husband Gaurav Shah were also nominated for their song ‘Abundance In Millets’ that featured Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
     Describing her nomination in the same category as the legend's a “miracle,” Falu said she told Hussain she doesn’t “deserve” to be in the same category as him and expressed her gratitude to him that she was.
     When Hussain won it, Falu went back and congratulated him, when he told her to ‘keep singing, keep creating, keep working on your craft. Never stop’.
     “And I have taken that,” she said, adding, it was an “awe” moment for her when she met the tabla maestro at the age of 16 for the first time.
     Hussain became the first Indian to receive three Grammy Awards in one night when he won the prestigious honour in the Best Contemporary Instrumental Album, Best Global Music Performance and Best Instrumental Composition at the 66th annual awards.
     New York-based Falu had won the Grammy for Best Children Music Album in 2022 with the album “A Colorful World.”
     Falu said Hussain used to tell her ‘Riyaaz ke bina sona nahin’ (don’t sleep without practicing). And I still practise it every day” and added, when gurus such as Zakir Hussain “say one thing to you, that becomes a life mantra.”
     Describes the time when her group ‘Falu’s Bollywood orchestra’ was invited by Hussain to open his concert in August 2021 as “the biggest honour an artist ever gets,” and said: “And I was so blessed and so lucky ... I don't take this lightly. I really was nervous and I was so excited at the same time.”
     She added that her husband, the lead singer in the orchestra, sang ‘Kuch Toh Log Kahenge’ and after the show, when they went to seek Hussain’s blessings, he lauded their performance saying, ‘Gaurav, Kuch Toh Log Zaroor Kahenge, aap ne bahut achcha gaya’ (people will definitely say something, you sang very well).”
     “Keep growing in music, because it's your craft and you have to keep going,” Hussain told them.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)