The migratory bird flew in as always during winter to keep his annual date with India. The musician with magic in his fingers moved from his abode in San Francisco, US, to enthrall an audience that awaits him year after year. Zakir Hussain, whose curls fall all over his face ever so cutely when his tablas speak a language that elates his audience, was in Mumbai for not only a diary full of concerts but also for the yearly remembrance to Abbaji, his father and guru Ustad Allah Rakha.

While protests and politics create turbulence outside, this is a world of calm, a balm actually. Zakir — once voted the sexiest man in India — is 68-going-on-69 and a grandfather too, but he makes a charming host, paying respect to diverse percussionists cutting across generations as he introduces them to the audience with familial warmth, and then sits in the front row to keep taal with his hands and applaud each performer. He’s all there in person right from 6am, when the curtain goes up, to the time Shanmukhananda Hall is ready to switch off the lights.

“Can you see how tired I am?” he said to me, amidst all the hugging and greeting that went on with his guests. I couldn’t spot the exhaustion since he was bursting with “hostwala” energy.

This year, after a very long spell, one of the main acts was Zakir teaming up with his brothers, Taufique and Fazal Qureshi (the two retain the family surname). In a little over an hour, the three had beaten every rhythmic composition there was to hear out of their drums.

Taufique — more than 10 years younger than Zakir — has become the maestro of djembe (the African drum), popularising it in India by weaving elements of his father’s teachings into this different medium. So there he stood with his long djembe while Zakir and Fazal talked with their traditional tablas, all three creating a scintillating unity of different sounds.

This unity lives in their lives offstage too. Zakir, the eternal entertainer, horsed around for a few seconds with the mike, beating sounds out of it a la Taufique. He was also heard chanting a shloka on stage — his father was famous for his Ganesh vandana.

And here’s where this trio lives with the credo, unity in diversity. Zakir, as most people know, is married to Kathak dancer Antonia, an American of Italian origin. His daughters are Aneesa and Isabella, the former married to an American. Meanwhile, Taufique is married to Maharashtrian classical singer Geetika and their son, Shikhar, plays music with his dad. Fazal, the youngest, is married to dancer Birwa, a Gujarati. With no religious conversions happening to anybody, it’s a celebration of culture that binds them together. If only this bliss could spill out of the auditorium and touch lives outside, maybe the turbulence over the different gods we pray to will eventually be soothed.

Apart from his homage to Abbaji every year, Zakir marks another important date in his annual calendar — a performance at Prithvi Theatre in honour of Jennifer Kendal, Shashi Kapoor’s wife who was one of Zakir’s biggest admirers. Come February 28 and there he’ll be with another set of percussionists to craft musical magic in Jennifer’s memory.

And thus, it’s time to pay tribute to mothers too. Taapsee Pannu’s new film Thappad, which lands a resounding slap on the faces of men and women who think a husband’s slap is par for the course and no grounds for divorce, has a unique strategy in place. To make this feminist message go out loud and clear, all the publicity material of Thappad carries credits with mothers’ names. For example, director Anubhav Sinha (who has found his groove after Mulk and Article 15) calls himself Anubhav Sushila Sinha in the credits of Thappad.

T-Series boss Bhushan Kumar is Bhushan Sudesh Kumar; it’s Krishan Krishna Kumar, Vinod Jamnaben Bhanushali, Shiv Urmila Chanana and so on — only for this film.

Of course, the man who deserves gratitude for such a thought is Sanjay Leela Bhansali — he had taken “Leela” as his middle name eons ago and has stuck to it as his eternal tribute to his mother.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author