Google is celebrating the 95th birth anniversary of Indian tabla maestro Ustad Allah Rakha with a doodle. The Google Doodle shows Ustad Alla Rakha playing tabla which is represented by the two ‘O’s of the Google logo.
All the letters in logo have been given a circular shape except the letter ‘L’. The second ‘g’ in the doodle has a line connecting two circle to make a ‘g’. The last letter in the logo is a circle which has a horizontal line which is not quite in the middle to symbolize the ‘dhol’, an instrument which was accidentally broken which led to the invention of the table.
Ustad Allah Rakha was born on April 29th,1919 in Jammu. He became fascinated with the sounds and rhythm of tabla at the age of 12 and left home to study tabla with Mian Kader Baksh of the Punjab ‘gharana’. He was a frequent accompanist of Ravi Shankar and performed with him at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and the Woodstock Festival in 1969 to introduce classical Indian music to general Western audiences.
He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1977 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1982. His three sons Zakir Hussain, Fazal Qureshi, and Taufiq Qureshi are renowned tabla players as well. Allah Rakha died on 3rd Feb 2000 in Shimla after a heart attack.
Google recently celebrated Earth day 2014 with an animated doodle which shows different animals wishing everyone a Happy Earth Day 2014 in their natural habitats. The doodle showed a Rofous hummingbird hovering in flowers, followed by a moon jellyfish in water, the dung beetle, a veiled chameleon and a pair of Japanese macaques in snow wishing everyone a ‘Happy Earth Day 2014’.
Source: TOI