His collaborators included John McLaughlin, Béla Fleck, Ravi Shankar, Herbie Hancock, Yo-Yo Ma and members of the Grateful Dead.

Zakir Hussain once jokingly told the audience, ‘Now, he (Bickram) is using a lot of big big words, but you all don’t know that I used to babysit him! He was so small, I used to carry him on my shoulders and roam around. Now he’s asking me big, big questions…’

Zakir Hussain, a prolific Indian musician known for playing the tabla, died Sunday from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.