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He comes from a family known for its acclaimed tabla players including his father, the late Ustad Allah Rakha Khan, brothers, Ustad Zakir Hussain and Fazal Qureshi. So, Taufiq Qureshi’s obvious choice should have been to master the tabla. However, he decided to explore percussion instruments from the world over. His desire to do “something different” has not diminished even after 25 years. Excerpts from an interview. No, it wasn’t difficult. Though I come from a classical background, I was always exposed to other forms of music. Even after being from a traditional, classical background, my father worked with The Beatles, John Handy, and many other great musicians from the West. So, when I expressed my desire to not get into ‘pure classical music’, my father was a little disappointed, but he was fine with it. He, too, had experimented with classical music. I felt there was so much music out there [to explore]. So, I didn’t want to limit myself with one genre. I wanted to try everything. You can say the tabla player in me manifested himself on the djembe. Now, I do djembe solos. All that my father taught me was in my head, so, I wanted to express all that in one instrument. After searching for many years, I came across the djembe. I felt that it was the right instrument. Now, it has been accepted by stalwarts who are hardcore Indian classical musicians as well as by classical music lovers. As a kid, I would use my breath to create rhythm whenever I heard Pancham da’s (RD Burman) songs. Even as a five-year-old, I was in the zone of vocal percussion. I would hear Pancham da making vocal sounds like ‘haahahahahaa’ [in songs], and I would do that the whole day. My mother would tell people, ‘What’s wrong with him? He has gone mad’. Even when I perform my breath percussion abroad, beatboxers come and ask me how I manage to do it. Keeping a rhythm going continuously and performing different rhythmic patterns using just your breath is not easy. One day, while I was returning to Mumbai from Singapore, I noticed a lot of garbage lying on the roadside. Looking at it I felt a little disappointed. Then I asked myself why I was complaining and not doing anything about it. That is when I decided to form a band called Mumbai Stamp, which I have worked only on background scores, and have never composed songs for films. I prefer to contribute to a song rhythmically. I enjoy it, because I find it more challenging. You need to catch the emotions woven in the film. For example, in the movie Main Hoon Na (2004), there is a scene, where Shah Rukh Khan is on a cycle rickshaw, and he is chasing someone. I have created the background score for the scene using my voice and rhythm. Recently, I created a track for Mirzya (2016), where people are shown working with hammers. I created the soundscape using different kind of hammers. I love being a part of these melodies in this way.