“Wah Taj”: The Story Behind Ustad Zakir Hussain’s Timeless Tea Ad Campaign

Ustad Zakir Hussain has died at 73. As curtains come down on a six-decade journey that catapulted tabla from an accompaniment to an art form, the country mourns the ever-smiling, wild-haired maestro whose persona was as captivating as the magic his hands conjured.

For many, the first memory of the legend is not a concert but the 1990s television advertisement for Brooke Bond Taj Mahal tea. The ad was not just marketing gold but a part of the shared memory of an entire generation. We still remember the maestro with Taj Mahal as his backdrop and the magical words, “Wah Ustad nahi, wah Taj boliye”.

Over his long professional career, Ustad Zakir Hussain transcended every barrier, from class to country to language to religion. His tabla recreated the sound of rain and re-imagined the beats of Lord Shiva’s Damru. And every time his long, curly hair swayed to the beats, we ignored his words and said, “Wah Ustad.”

The Creation Of A Timeless Ad

In 1966, Brooke Bond Taj Mahal tea was launched in Kolkata. Interestingly, the tabla maestro was not the first choice for the brand when it looked for celebrities for its ads. Actors Zeenat Aman and Malavika Tiwari appeared in Taj Mahal tea ads as the manufacturers tried to position it as an aspirational product. But by the 1980s, the makers observed that Taj Mahal tea was gaining popularity among the middle class too.

Hindustan Thompson Associates (HTA) was roped in to craft a new brand image that would properly cater to the tea’s expanded consumer base. Taj Mahal tea now needed a brand ambassador who balanced Indianness with Western exposure.

HTA’s KS Chakravarthy, then a copywriter, was a fan of the tabla and identified Ustad Zakir Hussain as the best choice for the job. The maestro was approached and some reports say he was so delighted that he flew down from San Francisco to Agra at his own cost.

The ad’s script was simple: the maestro practises for hours to perfect his art and in the same way, manufacturers of Taj Mahal tea tested numerous varieties to find the perfect blend and aroma.

Following the economic reforms in 1991, cable TV reached Indian homes and the Ustad’s smile beamed across our TV screens, lifting our mood and boosting the tea brand. In one of the most enduring ad campaigns ever, multiple faces appeared from time to time, including pop singer Alisha Chinai. But the Ustad remained constant.

When The Ustad Got Food As Fee

In a 1998 interview with Simi Garewal, Ustad Zakir Hussain said his mother Bavi Begam did not want him to be a tabla player. “At my time, when we were very young, music was still not considered to be something you can make a decent living at. So my mother had seen me go to concerts and come back with packed food as payment. That was it. She wanted me to have a better life. So she really tried hard to make sure that I studied and focused on being able to have something to fall back on,” he said. The maestro said his father, the legendary Ustad Alla Rakha, was his idol.

The Ustad said he would often read letters inviting his father to perform. “I would write back that he is not available, but his son is good enough. He would be glad to come and play. Many a times I arrived at the train station and they passed me by. They expected someone older and there was me, sometimes in school shorts.”

The maestro recounted an incident in which he wanted to run away with a woman who worked at their place. “She was one of the ladies who would look after us. I must have been very disgruntled with my mother, trying to stop me from playing music. I told Pujaran, let’s just run away. She used to sing a bit. I told her, ‘you sing, I will play, we will make a living’. I packed my school bags and was ready to go,” he said. The maestro said he did not leave home because “what I needed was there, my father, my teacher”.

The Jeans And Boombox Phase

Asked what was behind his decision to go to the US at 18, he said, “I wanted to wear jeans, I wanted to be a rock and roll star. I wanted to make a million dollars. I walked around the streets of Bombay with a boombox on my shoulder, listening to Doors and Beatles and what not. I thought that was the way to go, make a lot of money and be famous very quickly.”

“But when I got there, there was a whole different world altogether. I was living on 25 dollars a week, making one vegetable curry pot, heating it up every day and eating it with bread. Very tough times,” he said. On his role in tabla’s transcension from an accompaniment to an art form, he said, “I think that contribution of mine has happened because of two generations of hard work. When people like I arrived, the groundwork was laid, tabla players were not non-entities anymore.”

On his struggles, he said, “First of all, Indian classical music at one time was a second-class profession. And in that second-class profession, the tabla player was even lower on the ladder. At times, you didn’t even know who was the tabla player on the record. I was playing with musicians who would not be known, and I would be the known person, but then I would have to give in because I was an accompanist and I had to take much less.”