Framing a maestro
| Armand Colaco mirrorfeedback@timesofindia.com | Dec 10, 2025, 04:00 IST
Photographer Dayanita Singh revisits four decades of friendship, mentorship, and collaboration with Ustad Zakir Hussain in a deeply personal memorial exhibition that spans 300 images and a lifetime of artistic exchange
Photographer Dayanita Singh is in her Delhi studio, busy designing posters for her upcoming exhibition on the tabla maestro, Ustad Zakir Hussain, when we catch her on a video call. “This might interest you,” she says, reaching somewhere beyond the small screen to retrieve a green-coloured album cover with a black and white photo of Hussain. “This is Zakir’s first solo LP tabla record,” she shares, “and, since I got paid for it, my first job.”
Singh had designed the album cover while still a graphic design student at the National Institute of Design. Her illustrious career as photographer has since been inexorably entwined with Zakir Hussain.
At the upcoming memorial show, which opens this week at the NCPA and marks Husain’s first death anniversary, Singh will be displaying the many pictures she took of the artiste throughout his lifetime in a self-formed style of museums. “A museum for me is an architecture that holds things that are valuable,” she explains. “I like its interchangeability, and the Ustad Museum is pregnant with so many museums… for example, I didn’t realise how many images there were of Zakir with my mother, with him at our house,” she says, smiling. It also goes to reveal the deep bond the two shared, with Hussain playing the role of both, mentor and friend.
Off stage friendship
Husain and Singh first became acquainted in the early 1980s, when the latter travelled to Mumbai from Ahmedabad to photograph a Hussain concert for a college assignment. Not having any of the requisite permissions, she was stopped by an overzealous official, who pushed her off the stage. At the time, she was mortified, but after the show a concerned Hussain found her in the foyer, offered her some water, and invited her to photograph him at his next rehearsal. This set the ball rolling for a fruitful collaboration. She designed his album cover, and also created her first book of Hussain’s photographs, published in 1986. “God bless the man who pushed me,” she says, wryly.
Singh continued to photograph Hussain, travelling with his tour for six winters and returning to him intermittently over the years. The last time she shot him was in 2023, at a Shakti concert in Delhi. “What he taught me was the importance of focus and the importance of Riyaz—I’m not sure other disciplines have that kind of rigour,” she says, “It’s through his mentorship that I learned how important it is to master your medium before you can challenge it.”
Mentor across mediums
During the 2019 launch event of the re-release of Zakir Hussain Maquette, a Steidl facsimile edition scanned from Singh’s original maquette, comprising among other things insights from Hussain, the musician had said, “I play the tabla and she plays photography.” For Singh, the artistic relationship with Hussain was not simply about her craft, but the work and dedication an artiste requires. “He wasn’t teaching me photography, but how to commit oneself to the life of an artiste,” she explains. Hussain’s influence has been so deep on Singh’s work that for years her professional CV used to reference her education at the ‘Zakir Hussain Academy.’ “I still try and slip that in,” she says, smiling; but her dedication to her craft, learned from Hussain, is deeply serious.
She considers her new exhibition, the first since Hussain’s passing an arangetram, the formal debut of a performer after years of training, in the Indian classical tradition.
An archive of memories
The exhibition contains over 300 pictures that draw from contact sheets and the archive that go back to her years as a student. “Even if you’ve seen all of my Zakir images, you wouldn’t have seen more than a hundred,” says Singh. What is on display is a deeply personal collection, she says.
The show marks one year since Zakir Hussain’s death on December 15 last year, at the age of 73. Singh remembers an event at the Bengal Biennale that took place around the same time, where a performance meant to be led by the Ustad became an unexpected memorial. “I had to talk to this group, but I couldn’t stop crying. Then a voice inside said, get on with it.”
For Singh, her mentor’s absence continues to be unreal, but she believes the strength he imparted allows her to carry on. “I’m doing this exhibition for him, but I still can’t believe that he won’t see it.”
The memorial exhibition will be on preview from Dec 13 to Feb 3 at the Dilip Piramal Art Gallery, NCPA
Singh had designed the album cover while still a graphic design student at the National Institute of Design. Her illustrious career as photographer has since been inexorably entwined with Zakir Hussain.
At the upcoming memorial show, which opens this week at the NCPA and marks Husain’s first death anniversary, Singh will be displaying the many pictures she took of the artiste throughout his lifetime in a self-formed style of museums. “A museum for me is an architecture that holds things that are valuable,” she explains. “I like its interchangeability, and the Ustad Museum is pregnant with so many museums… for example, I didn’t realise how many images there were of Zakir with my mother, with him at our house,” she says, smiling. It also goes to reveal the deep bond the two shared, with Hussain playing the role of both, mentor and friend.
Off stage friendship
Husain and Singh first became acquainted in the early 1980s, when the latter travelled to Mumbai from Ahmedabad to photograph a Hussain concert for a college assignment. Not having any of the requisite permissions, she was stopped by an overzealous official, who pushed her off the stage. At the time, she was mortified, but after the show a concerned Hussain found her in the foyer, offered her some water, and invited her to photograph him at his next rehearsal. This set the ball rolling for a fruitful collaboration. She designed his album cover, and also created her first book of Hussain’s photographs, published in 1986. “God bless the man who pushed me,” she says, wryly.
Singh continued to photograph Hussain, travelling with his tour for six winters and returning to him intermittently over the years. The last time she shot him was in 2023, at a Shakti concert in Delhi. “What he taught me was the importance of focus and the importance of Riyaz—I’m not sure other disciplines have that kind of rigour,” she says, “It’s through his mentorship that I learned how important it is to master your medium before you can challenge it.”
Mentor across mediums
During the 2019 launch event of the re-release of Zakir Hussain Maquette, a Steidl facsimile edition scanned from Singh’s original maquette, comprising among other things insights from Hussain, the musician had said, “I play the tabla and she plays photography.” For Singh, the artistic relationship with Hussain was not simply about her craft, but the work and dedication an artiste requires. “He wasn’t teaching me photography, but how to commit oneself to the life of an artiste,” she explains. Hussain’s influence has been so deep on Singh’s work that for years her professional CV used to reference her education at the ‘Zakir Hussain Academy.’ “I still try and slip that in,” she says, smiling; but her dedication to her craft, learned from Hussain, is deeply serious.
She considers her new exhibition, the first since Hussain’s passing an arangetram, the formal debut of a performer after years of training, in the Indian classical tradition.
An archive of memories
The exhibition contains over 300 pictures that draw from contact sheets and the archive that go back to her years as a student. “Even if you’ve seen all of my Zakir images, you wouldn’t have seen more than a hundred,” says Singh. What is on display is a deeply personal collection, she says.
The show marks one year since Zakir Hussain’s death on December 15 last year, at the age of 73. Singh remembers an event at the Bengal Biennale that took place around the same time, where a performance meant to be led by the Ustad became an unexpected memorial. “I had to talk to this group, but I couldn’t stop crying. Then a voice inside said, get on with it.”
For Singh, her mentor’s absence continues to be unreal, but she believes the strength he imparted allows her to carry on. “I’m doing this exhibition for him, but I still can’t believe that he won’t see it.”
The memorial exhibition will be on preview from Dec 13 to Feb 3 at the Dilip Piramal Art Gallery, NCPA