It'll be a month on January 15, but no, I refuse to believe you've gone away. Just some months ago, I was looking forward to seeing you play with a set of young drummers, do another solo concert or join banjo player Bela Fleck, bassist Edgar Meyer and flautist Rakesh Chaurasia in what would have been a memorable experience. They, alas, were not to be.

The memories remain though, and the music lingers, as we celebrate your life. Only yesterday, in 1997, I first met you at a press conference welcoming great jazz keyboardist Joe Zawinul, with whom you did a guest appearance at Rang Bhavan. Seeing me run on stage during the interval, you had called me, saying, "Be careful of those wires. Nobody will bother if you trip, but it will take them three hours to fix them again."

As you see, it's taken me a while to write this. As a journalist, I had to write an obituary as soon as the news broke. The words came out by deadline-induced force, though they didn't want to. Many others wrote tributes, some of them really touching and heartfelt. I thought my job was done, but it wasn't.

The next few days were spent trying to absorb the news. I kept some of your albums for company – Concert For Peace with Pt Ravi Shankar, Santoor Viraasat with Pt Shivkumar Sharma and Rahul Sharma, Natural Elements by Shakti, your solo album Making Music, Planet Drum with Mickey Hart. You've been there in my mind's eye, in a sky-blue kurta, smiling away while playing.

Our association was more than that of Ustad and journalist. It wasn't that we met as often as I'd have liked, but each meeting gave me something to take home. I was a fan first. Then, there were the long official interviews, brief backstage greetings, casual encounters and meetings filled with banter and leg-pulling. Like, when you saw I had added a few inches around my belly, you had playfully punched me and said, "Is that a new 'baaya' (left drum) you've designed for me?" And I had quipped back, "It's actually Vikku-ji's ghatam."

Or the time you'd told me I'd started dressing up "nattily". And I had said, "I'm learning that from you, but I wish I'd also learnt tabla." Sometimes, I wondered whether it was right for me to be so casual and flippant with someone as respected as you, someone 12 years elder. But we both enjoyed the light-heartedness. Maybe it was a change from the formal environment you were often surrounded by.

On a serious note, there were many things I learnt over the years, just through inspiration. I shall mention three. One, you believed you would be a student all your life. It's true for every field. That approach convinced me that even as a journalist, I am learning as much or more than I am giving out. There's nothing like an encyclopedia, as every day brings out new pages to read.

Secondly, in an interview a year ago, you said you wanted to remain forever relevant. That thought explains how you changed with the times, teamed up with younger musicians and adapted to new trends. I gathered it's something all of us must follow, instead of continuing to bask in past glory. After all, we're all as good as our last concert - or article.

The third revolves around a conversation we had maybe 25 years ago, about your electronic fusion project Tabla Beat Science with producer Bill Laswell. You had asked how I follow so many genres with so much interest. I used the standard line, "All music is made from the same notes." After a pause, you said, "Yet no two sets of ears are the same". As a music reviewer, that line opened up a whole new approach, telling me that whatever my opinion is, others may have their own views which must be respected.

I can go on and on, but the proverbial auditorium has rules for closing time. Your humility can fill an entire chapter. I'll end by dedicating a tune to you. It was co-written by you and John McLaughlin in the 1987 album Making Music, and its title is Zakir. My feelings are somewhat like what saxophonist Jan Garbarek plays - there's gratitude, melody, sadness and also a warm sense of joyful nostalgia. I can hear your tabla speak in excited rhythmic response.