In Fine Tune

At Ganesh Peth,perhaps the most melodious sounds emanate from this 70-year-old shop. The hand-painted board reads ‘Sheikh Gulab Tabla Maker’. On display here are a variety of percussion instruments,whose sounds Gonde has spent more than 18 years of his life listening to. Watching him splicing leather to make a tabla is like watching clinical precision in motion.

For this team of five,making and repairing traditional Indian instruments is a family legacy. Nisar Sheikh Gulab,who manages the shop,is known around the area as Nisar bhai . Qawwali singers,classical troupes and bhajan mandals throng the place often in search of new instruments or for the repair of olden ones. Nisar bhai inherited the shop from his father,Sheikh Gulab,and has been managing it since then. Ask him about the instruments they make and a long list readily tumbles out. “We make dhol,tabla dhak,mrudung,dagga …While we do make instruments,the maximum amount of work is invested in repairing old instruments.”

It’s not uncommon to find anyone of them struggling with a dhol or a dholak ,trying to either fix the skin or put an out-of-tune instrument back on track. They get the material to build a tabla from various places. “We get the leather from Sholapur,the iron for the shai from Gujarat and the wood comes from Delhi. It takes atleast three days for the leather to dry after we have made the instrument,” explains Nisar,as he picks up a mrundung .

From this tiny shop,one can see a music mall,just a few blocks ahead. “Yes,there are so many shops selling music now,but our business has never been better,” Gonde says,adding,”Those who have been coming to us,have always stayed. Plus,we meet the demands of the local talent.” Tabla player Santosh Hadge agrees; “I play for a qawwali group and we share a good rapport with Nisar bhai . Their years of experience help us repair instruments which,we think,are hopelessly out of tune.”