I was a fan for many years, so when I saw he was playing a concert at the Bombay Cricket Club, as it was known then, towards the end of 1998, with Shiv Kumar Sharmar (Santour) and Hariprasad Chaurasia (wooden flute), I was very excited.
Several thousand people sitting on chairs on the grass, watched in absolute silence, as three musical geniuses performed a concert which was beyond sublime. It was a transformational experience.
During the interval, I needed to pee, and when I entered the gent's each urinal had a queue behind it and still, everyone was silent or near so and everyone was smiling in quiet bliss.
After the concert, I went to get the performers' autographs. Zakir had been slightly coughing throughout the performance, and when I approached him, he was surrounded by teenage girls, all seeking his attention.
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At one point, he started to violently cough, and without thinking, I reached out my hand and laid it upon his shoulder as if to offer him comfort.