'Pressure to perform is always there'

Musical legacy

Sharing the stage with his father and tabla guru Ustad Rashid Mustafa Thirakwa at the age of 16 during one of the performances at the Commonwealth Games in the city, Shariq Mustafa recollects how he learnt that it was important to stay put.

“I remember, I had come back from a tour and was really tired. But as they say, the
show must go on. So, when I started performing with my father, the one-and-a-half hour tabla performance turned out to be joyful,” recalls Mustafa.

As the grandson of tabla maestro and Padma Bhushan recipient Ustad Ahmad Jaan Thirakwa Khan, Mustafa was initiated into playing tabla at the age of four.

“If it wasn’t for my father’s dream and my mother’s constant support, I wouldn’t have discovered the enjoyment of playing this instrument,” the 23-year-old tells Metrolife.

Hailing from the Farukabad gharana (style of tabla playing), Mustafa is the fifth generation in the family of musicians who are pioneers in Hindustani classical music. But does the legacy put him under pressure? “I feel pressure to perform is always there.

Especially when a performer from an artiste’s family does well, expectations rise, at home as well as outside,” says the Delhi-based player.

As a young player, he has received scholarships from the Ministry of Culture, Sahitya Kala Parishad and has performed in several festivals including Sangeet Natak Academy Music Festival, Delhi Classical Music Festival and Youth Festival.

As an improvisational artiste, he has developed unique styles of tabla playing, which include the gharanas of Delhi, Lucknow, Ajrada, Punjab and Benaras.

“It is very important to keep improvising. It has happened often that we plan something else, and depending upon the audience’s mood, we change our plans all of a sudden,” he explains.

Mustafa also sings both Sufi and Bollywood songs in the band called Mystique Sufi. Does he have plans to do fusion? “I really think that as a performer, I should not be mixing them up.

So, while my concentration is on tabla, singing will continue to happen as part of the band,” says Mustafa who also likes jazz and performed at the London Jazz Festival in
London in 2015.

He will be performing at India Habitat Centre on July 13 and will then fly to the US for a 1 month music tour.