Zakir Hussain Critical, Still Alive': Table Maestro's Family Dismisses Reports Of His Death

Zakir Hussain, a tabla legend, is "very very critical" but is "very much breathing at the moment", newswire agency PTI has reported.

"My brother is very sick right now. We are asking all his fans here in India and all over the world to pray for him, to pray for his health. "As India’s greatest export ever don’t put him to rest right now," she said.

"Just want to request all the media to stop following false information about Zakir Hussain Death. He’s quite alive now. He’s so very critical, but he’s still here. He has not yet gone. I will ask (the media) to refrain from eliciting this gossip by writing or asserting that he has died. "It hurts me when I see all this information on Facebook and it’s just awful," she said.

Hussain’s publicist also told PTI that the percussionist is being treated at the San Francisco hospital and "has not passed". He has won many awards for his outstanding performance. He won Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in the ceremony.

Hussain is in the ICU of a hospital in San Francisco for heart problems, his friend and flautist Rakesh Chaurasia earlier said on Sunday. The 73-year-old US-born tabla star had been suffering from high blood pressure, Hussain’s manager Nirmala Bachani said.

Lok Sabha leader and Congress MLA Rahul Gandhi mourned the death of the Tabla maestro, saying that the former's "death is a huge loss for the music industry".

"The news of the death of the great tabla player Ustad Zakir Hussain ji is incredibly heartbreaking. The loss of him is a devastating loss for music. I’m here to support his family and admirers through this difficult time. Ustad Zakir Hussain ji has made such a legacy of his art which we will never forget", Rahul Gandhi wrote in a tweet.