A museum of rare Indian musical instruments

History of a different nature lives in a museum that houses lost treasures of India’s old musical traditions. Situated in central Delhi’s Feroz Shah Road, the Gallery of Musical Instruments at Rabindra Bhawan, Sangeet Natak Akademi (SNA), not only reminds one of the country’s rich musical history, but also of its dying folk legacy.

SNA, India’s national academy for music, dance and drama, was set up in 1952 with the aim to preserve and promote performing arts in India. To further its objectives, SNA maintains the museum that showcases the rich heritage and legacy of performing arts as well as musical instruments from different regions of the country.

The one-of-its-kind museum was inaugurated in 1964 by the renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin and the methodical collection began in 1968 with the Akademi organising an exhibition of about 400 folk and tribal musical instruments in Delhi. Acquisitions have been made regularly since then, with some of the instruments donated by musicians and their families.

Though SNA has more than 2,000 indigenous musical instruments, masks, puppets and headgear, only 250 are on permanent display, while the rest are kept in a storage facility due to lack of space.

Jayant Raj Choudhry, the museum curator, says, “The instruments represent different streams of music. These have been classified as wind instruments, or aerophonic, including bansuri and nagaswaram; string instruments, or chordophonic, including dilruba and veena; percussion instruments, or membranophonic, including tabla and mridangam, and idiophonic, including bortal and ghatam.”

From time to time, a number of exhibitions of these instruments have been held in India and other countries, the most notable being in Hong Kong, Italy, Russia, Greece, Egypt, Spain and South Korea.

Most instruments, acquired from towns and villages, seem alien antiques that one may never have laid eyes on. The names are equally obscure. For instance: the saitar is not sitar, but a tribal chordophone, gowri kalam (“kalam” means pen in Hindi) is actually a trumpet and davandi, a membranophone, is an hour-glass shaped small drum of brass.

Then there are items such as tenkaya burra, a string instrument, and makara yazh, a now extinct instrument. The rare instruments include kachwa sitar of North India and gettu vadyam of Tamil Nadu.

“The collection is the result of the museum’s archive team going to the most remote corners of the country and approaching local musicians to acquire knowledge about the treasure,” says Choudhry, who has been associated with the museum for more than 15 years.

Sadly though, while many people frequent the SNA, few are aware of the gallery or the fact that the archival team collected these instruments over a period of 40 years.

But for some time now, the SNA has been promoting the culture of music by honouring eminent instrument manufacturers who have been doing so for generations. “The practice was undertaken after we realised that people were increasingly switching to other occupations,” Choudhry says.

In its efforts to preserve and promote the art, training programmes in instrument making under master craftsmen have also been undertaken in Rajasthan and Kolkata, primarily to encourage young artisans in their hereditary occupation.

In its first interactive session, the focus was on the making of the tabla. Derived from the Arabic word “tabl”, the tabla consists two drums — the “bayan” (left) and the “dayan” (right).

“Well-known tabla maker Qasim Khan Niyazi, whose tablas are used by Pandit Zakir Hussain, had numerous tales to share with the audience. Reminiscing on his childhood when Khan was initiated as an apprentice in the art of tabla-making, he worked with master craftsmen at Hyderabad, Varanasi, Kolkata, Patna, Aligarh and Kanpur, and eventually moved to Delhi in 1972 to set up an independent business.

“However, it was difficult for him to make ends meet as his tablas were more expensive than others available in the market. He never compromised on quality of the material. But that didn’t help and he was forced to become a vegetable vendor,” Choudhry says.

The turning point for Khan, Choudhry says, came when renowned kathak exponent Durga Lal, for whom he had crafted a pakhawaj, came forward to help. Khan was later honoured with the SNA Award. He has successfully passed on his craft to his three sons — Mahmoud Khan, Mujeeb Ahmad and Ghulam Hasnain.

“It is a fact that most artists and their children engaged in instrument-making are leaving their family traditions for better opportunities elsewhere. They say that while the instruments they make are played by eminent artists who earn name, fame and money, no one pays heed to the craftsmen,” he adds.

Keeping these aspects in mind, the SNA has been taking initiatives to make people aware of the craft and the persons behind it. One such person is the sitar-maker of Kolkata, Mangala Prasad Sharma, whose forefathers have been practising this craft, and who was initiated into this craft as a child.

“Whenever I asked for pocket money, my father would tell me to first polish the sitar or do some other related chore. Gradually, my interest in the instrument grew. I was never taught to use scales or measurement tapes, I still don’t do so while making the sitar.

“I learnt to make the instrument merely by watching, but was taught about the quality, the purity and impurity of gourds, wood, ivory, horn, bone, carving, strings, glue, polish and finally how to tune the instruments,” Sharma says.

Sharma explained the techniques of selecting the right materials for the instrument and how strings were fixed to it. He also provided tips in case the pegs of the sitar or any stringed instruments were missing.

Asked if it was important for a maker to learn to play the instrument, Sharma says it is, otherwise how will a maker be able to judge the quality of the instruments and the “swara”, as well as the actual pitches of all the “pardas”? “The idea is to make an instrument that comes alive when touched or plucked and produces a sound that creates pleasure, peace and harmony. This is what makes it a live musical experience,” he says.

Nilima Pathak is a journalist based in New Delhi.

Some instruments in SNA’s possession

Sarinda (chordophone): A bowed instrument with three main playing steel strings. It is hollowed out of a single block of wood and one-third of the resonator is covered with parchment fixed with wooden mails. It’s played with a horse hair bow and is used as an accompaniment in Assamese songs.

Tarpu (aerophone): This is an elongated full-length gourd fitted with two equal-length bamboo reed pipes with a megaphone attached at the open end. Comprising a single beating reed, it is blown through the mouthpiece. Both the hands manipulate the finger holes — three on each pipe — and the instrument is used in group dance and folk ensembles in Gujarat and neighbouring regions.

Gini (idiophone): This instrument from Orissa consists of two small metal discs of brass with a slight bulge in the centre. A type of manjira, the units are stuck face-to-face. It is used in devotional songs.

Swarmandal (chordophone): This is a shallow wooden box with 25 strings tied to string holding posts and tuning pins. Beads are inserted into the strings for fine-tuning it. Right-hand fingers strum these open strings of harp category. It is used as an accompaniment in North Indian vocal music concerts.

Jeel (membranophone): Used in traditional and folk music of Rajasthan, this is a single piece cone-shaped instrument made out of many metal pieces riveted together. Skin fastened with intricate lacing through upper hoop and one small leather hoop at the bottom, it is possibly played with a similar type of a bigger drum and beaten with two sticks.

Vilkotti Yazh (chordophone): This instrument has a crescent-shaped hollow wooden body, with seven wooden pegs of the tail in which seven steel strings are tied. As seen in ancient sculptures, the instrument was played with fingers, probably for providing melodic support.