Me and My Tabla

Back when I was really young, my father asked me if I wanted to learn how to play the Tabla. The Tabla is a pair of drums, widely popular in the Indian subcontinent. I used to sing quite well since I was three, so it would have made sense to take vocal lessons. However, for reasons that I can’t recall any more (perhaps there weren’t any) I started taking Tabla lessons from Pandit Shambhunath Mishra. This was at a makeshift school operated by Prayag Sangeet Samiti (a music university) and I was the only Tabla student at the time.

I had one barrier to learning Tabla, namely that I was (and still am) bowlegged. This made it very difficult to sit with my legs crossed (the most comfortable and recommended position). So I had to first devise my own sitting posture, which, though slightly uncomfortable, worked for me. The classes with Shambhunathji went well, and I started learning how to play. The initial days of Tabla are the hardest, when you are learning to produce the most basic sounds. Over time (a few years), I was playing reasonably OK. I had a good work ethic, in that I used to spend a lot of time practicing. My prowess in Mathematics helped immensely, as a lot of Tabla playing is about understanding the Mathematics of the rhythm.

Over time though, the class schedule became somewhat erratic, as Shambhunathji wasn’t able to make it. After a few months of classes off and on, we decided that it was time to move on. I sought and got admission at the renowned Bhatkhande Music College (BMC) and joined the classroom of Pandit Sheetal Prasad Mishra, a very well-known Tabla player. He was a junior lecturer at the time. I had heard Sheetalji play several times and really liked his style so I was very pleased to be in his classroom. The college also boasted of highly renowned Tabla players like Pandit Ramkumar Sharma and Pandit Ranganath Mishra as faculty members.

The years at BMC were just wonderful. Sheetalji was a great teacher for me, and I learned a lot. I got to perform on TV and also won BMC’s annual open competition for my level. My learning was halted when I got admitted to the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. However, I never stopped playing and practicing and it has been 26 years since then. I am not a great Tabla player by any means, but I can play well enough to get by.

For the last couple of years, I felt that my knowledge was getting wasted as I was getting older, and I constantly thought about passing it on to others. Finally, this September, I started teaching Tabla. I have always been pretty bad when it comes to selling, and this was no exception. I did not try to advertise, other than telling a couple of people who are connected to the Indian music scene. Surprisingly, I now have five students, and a few others have also shown interest. Watching students learn makes the whole experience worthwhile, as does the challenge of teaching in a way that will hold their interest. Over the last couple of years, work has been particularly stressful, and this has helped a lot to relieve that stress. I hope to get a chance to visit Shambhunathji and Sheetalji one of these days and tell them what an honor it is to pass on the knowledge received from them to the next generation on the opposite side of the globe. I hope I will be a good teacher. I am not sure what to expect from this generation students who already have a lot of pressure on them with several organized activities. So the challenge in on!