Shivpuri Colony
Lanka, Varanasi
The waft of the taal of tabla spills tears from my heart suddenly as I am washing the dishes from lunch in this intense breezeless heat in my open-air kitchen. The house next door, or someone living below, is a musician. He is practicing a tekha, with the same rhythm playing again and again in cycles of 16. The bayan is soft and accompanies the darts of the tabla, pulling me back to an all-night spontaneous concert by drunken Ustad Shahid Pervez and Pandit Kumar Bose a decade ago, in the living room of a student settled in the foggy hills of Jharkhand.
Lanka, Varanasi
The waft of the taal of tabla spills tears from my heart suddenly as I am washing the dishes from lunch in this intense breezeless heat in my open-air kitchen. The house next door, or someone living below, is a musician. He is practicing a tekha, with the same rhythm playing again and again in cycles of 16. The bayan is soft and accompanies the darts of the tabla, pulling me back to an all-night spontaneous concert by drunken Ustad Shahid Pervez and Pandit Kumar Bose a decade ago, in the living room of a student settled in the foggy hills of Jharkhand.
The tabla is a percussion instrument, created by stretching
cowskin over a conical cylindrical frame of teak and rosewood, and securing it with leather stitches. A central black area, called the syahi, is created with flour and iron fillings, rubbed with stone onto the skin, and placed slightly off-center to give it different tones.
The brass or copper drum, larger and more round, is called the bayan, baya meaning left.
The tabla was introduced only recently in the 1300s by polymath Amir Khusro and popularized in the courts of the kings to add a rhythmic
sensuality to voice, sitar, or dance.
Music is an integral part of Bengali and Benarasi culture.
It is rare for a family not to have some member who cultivates music. In my family, my mother sang Rabindrasangeet,
my father played violin, my sisters played flute, my niece the clarinet. I
believe I was cursed in an earlier life: I am surrounded by music but have yet
been unable to maintain proficiency. My flute of life has too many odd holes to hold a tune. Krishna’s disappointment in me in
obvious.
The tabla continues to beat over the hot afternoon air as I
head back to the office for afternoon classes. When I return in the early
evening, after a strong rain has flooded the streets, he is still practicing, the sign of a strong reyaaz. My many musician
friends who came to Benaras to devote a portion of their life to authetic study share their stories of
daily 8-10 hours of practice. This is the way of reyaaz: dedication and discipline, living the adage that practice
brings perfection.