'I hope they are making khartals'
Anoparam Sutar is among the last makers of Rajasthan’s iconic percussion instrument – the khartal. Others have migrated to cities to make furniture which pays better
August 31, 2024 | Sanket Jain
A lifetime of handcrafting morchangs
Mohanlal Lohar has been making morchangs for over half a century. These percussion instruments can be heard across Rajasthan’s sand dunes
July 25, 2024 | Sanket Jain
Badyokars of Majuli struggle to stay in tune
Percussion instruments play a big role in Assamese festivals celebrated through the year. The skilled craftsmen who make and repair these critical dhols, khols and more, say the new anti-slaughter law has led to a rise in prices, and harassment
March 26, 2024 | Prakash Bhuyan
Sitarmakers of Miraj: fading notes
Families in this town in Maharashtra make stringed instruments such as the sitar and tanpura. The younger generation is moving away from the crafting to learning how to play as well
February 29, 2024 | Swara Garge and Prakhar Dobhal
The sweet music of jack wood
Many of India’s iconic musical instruments are made from the wood of the jackfruit tree, grown across Tamil Nadu. The highly skilled makers in Panruti and Thanjavur coax ragam and rhythm from its timber
February 28, 2024 | Aparna Karthikeyan
‘My tarpa is my deity’
Bhiklya Ladkya Dhinda is a Warli Adivasi. The 89-year-old musician lives in Walwande and plays the tarpa, a traditional wind instrument made from bamboo and dried bottle gourd. Listen to the story of his music and faith, as told by him
February 22, 2023 | Bhiklya Ladkya Dhinda
Narayan Desai’s jugaad with the shehnai
In Karnataka’s Manakapur village, as demand for traditional, handmade shehnais declines rapidly, a 65-year-old craftsman resorts to a series of innovations to keep his craft alive
June 12, 2023 | Sanket Jain
Hanging by strings on Mumbai locals
Rajasthani migrant, Kishan Jogi plays the sarangi on Mumbai’s local trains. He does this to honour his father's legacy but says it's difficult to make a living
June 5, 2023 | Aakanksha
Quiet blows the kombu in Madurai
Kombu artistes in Tamil Nadu are struggling without any income from temple festivals and public events during the Covid-19 lockdowns. But their worries are more about the declining art
June 29, 2021 | M. Palani Kumar
‘Dancing like flowers in a garland’
At celebrations and commemorations during the winter months, young men and women from Chhattisgarh's Gond community travel together to perform the Hulki Mandri and Kolang dances, and sing Rela songs
March 30, 2021 | Purusottam Thakur
Dinkar Aiwale's many flutes of labour
Dinkar Aiwale, master craftsman and musician in Maharashtra's Kodoli village, has perfected making flutes for 1.5 lakh hours – but the work and music have faded away with the lockdown and other challanges
March 6, 2021 | Sanket Jain
Fading out: Maniram's flutes, Orchha's forests
Maniram Mandawi, a flute-maker from the Gond Adivasi community in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district, recalls a time when forests were rich in animals, trees and bamboo for his signature 'swinging flute'
February 24, 2021 | Priti David
Pushing the tempo at Mumbai's farm sit-in
At Mumbai's Azad Maidan, at a farmers' protest in late January, dhumsi and tarpa players from Adivasi communities in Maharashtra's Dahanu taluka opposed the new farm laws through song and dance
February 24, 2021 | Oorna Raut and Riya Behl
Peruvemba: struggling to retain its rhythm
With no sales in the Covid-19 lockdown, and difficulty in procuring rawhide for their bespoke percussion instruments, the Kadachi Kollan craftspeople in Kerala’s Peruvemba village are missing a steady income
January 19, 2021 | K.A. Shaji
Baans geet: in tune with Chhattisgarh cowherds
In central Chhattisgarh's Balod district, Pacharam, Babulal and Sahadev Yadav, from a community of cowherds, still perform the baans baja-geet – a traditional instrument and songs that are no longer popular
January 13, 2021 | Purusottam Thakur
‘We will play and dance our way to Delhi’
Around 1,000 farmers from various districts of Maharashtra, many of them Adivasis, are trying to join the protestors in Delhi – in vans, tempos, jeeps and cars. It is a colourful and determined caravan
December 24, 2020 | Shraddha Agarwal
Birbhum’s fading sounds of jal, jangal, jameen
Musical instruments popular with, and rooted in, Adivasi societies are in decline. And the reasons for this in West Bengal’s Birbhum district go beyond the cultural
November 18, 2020 | Sayani Chakraborty
The down but not out dhakis of the Durga Puja
The traditional drummers of rural Bengal are having a hard time in Kolkata this season
October 26, 2020 | Ritayan Mukherjee
Dealing with dissonance, restoring harmony
Several hereditary harmonium repairmen – now a very rare occupation – from Jabalpur, MP, were trapped in Renapur, Maharashtra, for over two months due to the lockdown. They tell PARI how they coped
June 15, 2020 | Ira Deulgaonkar
Rajma and corn, rubab and khanjari
Listen to Premlal, a farmer-musician from Chamba district, performing at a recent festival
March 12, 2020 | Purusottam Thakur
The bards of Nuapada and the goddess of grains
Although their craft tradition is waning and needs state support, the Debgurus in Odisha continue making idols and objects with paddy, and go from village to village reciting the Laxmi Purana
February 17, 2020 | Ipsita Ruchi
The mridangam makers of Mylapore
Jesudas and his son Edwin are skilled craftsmen, known in the Carnatic music universe of Chennai and elsewhere for the mridangams they give life to, though they still face occasional communal biases
May 23, 2019 | Ashna Butani
The bamboo drummers of Kasargod
In Parappa village of Kerala, men from the Mavilan Adivasi community drum on ‘grass’ during festivals and other events, and for the rest of the year these musicians are daily wage labourers
April 16, 2019 | Gopika Ajayan
Sounds, songs, slogans
At the farmers' rally on February 20-21 in Nashik, many came with their traditional musical instruments, adding rhythm and lyrics to the protest gathering
March 1, 2019 | Sanket Jain
The baja for the nacha in Achhoti
Every year, musicians from Dalit communities in western Odisha gather at a square in Raipur, and wait to be hired by OBC dance groups from Chhattisgarh
February 13, 2019 | Purusottam Thakur
Migrant musicians in the mountains
Agricultural labourers from Rajasthan travel to Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh in April-May every year to play the ravanahatha, a popular centuries-old folk instrument, and earn a seasonal income
June 20, 2018 | Namita Waikar
‘The mountain, forest and streams are our gods’
The Adivasis of the Niyamgiri hills of Odisha won a victory in 2013 against mining, but the threats to their ancestral land remain. Rajkishor Sunani, poet-activist, sang about at the recent Niyamgiri festival
April 20, 2018 | Purusottam Thakur
Dancing to the dollu in Hesaraghatta
Young women on the outskirts of Bengaluru excel at a Kannada drum-and-dance form long thought to be a skill for burly men. In the video here, watch the group perform with extraordinary energy and rhythm
November 14, 2017 | Vishaka George
Drums and dreams beyond pickle and papad
Battling barbs from villagers, abusive husbands, and centuries-old caste prejudices, ten Dalit women in Dhibra village of Bihar have formed a band – and now have many marching and swaying to their beat
August 3, 2017 | Puja Awasthi
Basudeb Baul: singing the ballads of Bengal
The Baul culture of music is distinctive, with a syncretic philosophy of life. In the film featured here, Basudeb Das Baul, a practitioner and teacher from Bolpur in Birbhum district, speaks of this way of life and art form
August 1, 2017 | Sinchita Maji
Drums, bagpipes and Choliya dance
Choliya troupes in Uttarakhand integrate Scottish bagpipes into rural Indian music
April 2, 2016 | Yashashwini Raghunandan & Ekta Mittal
When Meenakshi beats a pot 3000 times
Eight kilograms of mud that make a beautiful music in Manamdurai, Tamil Nadu
March 8, 2016 | Aparna Karthikeyan
Pung
This traditional drum of Manipur's Meitei community is central to their culture, and to spectacular music and dance
December 31, 2015 | Anubha Bhonsle & Sunzu Bachaspatimayum
Narasingapettai’s nadaswaram makers
For generations, the artisans here have handcrafted the complex wind instrument. But with younger family members now switching to more lucrative professions, the craft is dying
April 13, 2015 | Aparna Karthikeyan
Playing the pawari in Dang, Gujarat
Listen to this traditional instrument of the Adivasi communities of Dang
