The carpenter-minstrel of Sarala village

A waterbody known as boro Kalibarir dighi, surrounding a giant monument of Shiva, serves as the epicentre of the nondescript town of Dharmanagar in Tripura. A place in the middle of an urban chaos where locals and tourists flock every evening in search of a tranquil spot. Often a soothing melody pierces through engine roars, impatient honking of vehicles, and bustling crowds, pulling people in the direction of the music.

A man in his 60s sitting near the lake plays popular folk songs on a long-necked lute-like instrument. Eyes closed, he plucks the strings with one hand, moving the other across the narrow fingerboard. The few curious people gathered around him know neither his instrument, nor the melody, nor the name of this artist from Mali community, listed as Scheduled Caste in Tripura.

But just 15 kilometres away, in the small gram panchayat of Sarala (under Kadamtala Block) in North Tripura district, everyone recognises Ratish Malakar as ‘the dotara player.’

“We all know him. He is the man that people know our village by,” a 26-year-old local rickshaw driver tells us proudly. But Ratish hesitates, “I am not a professional musician. I am a carpenter. I did all the woodwork of this house myself.” We are inside his two-room brick and mud house, sitting on an elevation among serene tea gardens. “Music is something I find peaceful. Whenever I have no work, I make and play dotara.”

Ratish introduces us to the plucked string folk instrument with a great cultural significance and history. Dotara, dotar or swaraj has been an integral part of many centuries-old traditions across Bangladesh, West Bengal, Assam, and eastern Bihar. Its presence can be found in spiritual folk music like Baul, folksongs of Bhawaiya and Bhatiali from the rural countryside, as well as in oral storytelling. “People call it dotara (double-stringed), but most instruments have at least four strings, sometimes even six. I prefer calling it swaraj,” says Ratish.

“Whenever I am stuck with a problem of measurement or something else, I take a little break from work and play the instrument. It helps me focus again.” Ratish picks up a piece from the fresh batch of dotara in the making and acquaints us with its parts: resonator (bati), the membrane that covers it, the neck (dhor), four to six strings, and tuning pegs. The making and the design of the lute have changed over time and across regions.

No one in Ratish’s family, master-carpenters for generations, has ever made a musical instrument before. As a teenager Ratish had dropped out of school and joined his father to support their family. “Sometimes we would travel to nearby markets in Kadamtala or Churaibari. One day, I came across a group of artists playing various stringed instruments and the one that I liked was called dotara.” That is when he decided to make one himself.

“Later, a blind dotara player in Dharmanagar taught me the measurements. In 1982, at the age of 20, I made my first piece from soft kuma wood purchased from a local vendor,” he says. He had no idea about sandpaper then. He used to smoothen the piece using finely crushed glass wrapped in a thick cloth. “I used a piece of leather from a damaged dholak (drum), some scrap metal parts, and repurposed it. The pick [plectrum] was made from a buffalo horn. Now we have only plastic ones.” Ratish remembers every detail.

“For the strings, I use musical wires of different thickness,” says Ratish, pulling out bronze, steel and copper ones sourced from a musical instrument shop in Dharmanagar. “The tuning depends entirely on my ear. I play and tune the instrument.” And that can take hours. Though he learnt to play and make the dotara early in life, it is only recently that he started selling it to deal with his financial struggles, the latest being the treatment for his 52-year-old wife, Jyotsana.

“She has been diagnosed with cancer in the last few years. We take her to Silchar in Assam [120 km away] for treatment, often more than once a month. I have already spent close to five lakhs on this. And since I had to borrow the amount, I am now deep in debt. Even after selling some of my jackfruit trees for wood. The last one fetched 4,000 rupees,” says Ratish.

When there is carpentry work, Ratish gets paid Rs. 500 a day. In a month he makes 7,000 rupees at the most. But then there are times when he is unable to find work for two or three months. “That’s how I started going to Dharmanagar to sell the instruments. That could be our only source of money. I hardly have any savings. My eldest son works at a jewellery shop in the town and helps as much as he can,” says Ratish. His four children – three sons and a daughter – take care of Jyotsana’s hospital visits between them. The youngest daughter, Rimita, 17, is still in high school.

The minstrel’s only solace is his music. “I choose a song or a tune and keep playing on my own. No one has ever taught me. When I play the dotara, I lose all sense of time. I had never thought of making money from this. It was only five years ago, as I was struggling financially, that someone suggested making and selling dotaras.” He has sold 13 till now. He can get up to Rs. 5,000 for a piece. “Raw material for a piece itself costs 2,000 rupees. But I’ve never sold the first dotara I had made. I am too attached to it.” Ratish’s face lights up as he speaks.

Now he gets customers. “I am a lover of music and Ratish is quite a player himself. When I learned that he makes dotaras, I immediately asked him to make one for me,” says Surendra Nath, 45, a science teacher. He was Ratish’s first customer. He even encouraged him to make more pieces and invited him to perform at a local club.

This recognition in the community, however, does not excite Ratish’s family. “We knew he was into music at the time of marriage. We almost never ask him to play, thinking he would be tired after a long day at work. Our main concern while getting our daughter married was a stable income, a permanent residence,” says Ratish’s mother-in-law Sarada Malakar, 70, who is visiting her daughter.

Ratish knows that this is a legacy he will never pass on to his children. “It is going to end with me. None of my children are interested in the craft. They don’t have the energy, patience, or inclination for it.” But the apathy is not limited to his family. None of the government schemes for veteran artists like him have brought Ratish any relief. “I have applied to three different pension schemes for craftspersons including the shilpi bhata and the carpenter bhata. But I have received nothing,” he says.

“I won’t say I don’t wish for recognition, but I wish I was more talented. Then I would have chosen a life in music. When mother was alive, she used to ask me to sing for her. I would play the dotara and sing a devotional song. That used to be enough then…”

This story is supported by a fellowship from Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation (MMF).