Allarakha Khan was one of the most famous and widely recorded tabla players of the 20th century. He moved from Lahore to Bombay in the late 1940s and took full advantage of the opportunity to be in the public eye when Ravi Shankar retained him as his regular touring accompanist from around 1962 onwards. What he lacked in beauty of tone Allarakha more than made up for with the most magically intuitive and natural sense of rhythm – an ability to play ouside the beat while always remaining entirely cognizant of it. My sense is that this was a trait that was nurtured (or maybe released) in the spotlight, where he often found himself with Ravi Shankar by his side counting and clapping along for the benefit of the audience. The excerpt offered here, however, is from a much earlier recording in jhaptal (10 counts) in which Allarakha plays his own qaida composition with variations: a theme he played often, and one which he adapted to fit many different tals (dha tira kita taka tira kita dha tira kita taka tira kita dha ti dha ge dhi na ge na, etc.).