March 18, 2017. Ustad Zunain Khan, the torchbearer of the Jafferkhani Baaj sitar playing style, was to perform a jugalbandi with me. It was...
March 18, 2017. Ustad Zunain Khan, the torchbearer of the Jafferkhani Baaj sitar playing style, was to perform a jugalbandi with me. It was an unusual combination – his magnificent sitar and the new kid on the block, the Pratham tarang.
Some of the classical music aficionados were amused at the sight of the two instruments lying side by side. The eager audience that had heard me tapping away old Hindi film songs with consummate ease for years waited for the anticlimax to unfold. The odd-looking instrument with screeching keys would be no match for the sitar. May the goddess Saraswati rescue Rajendra Naik.
The encore that I received for my rendition of short pieces of classical ragas, matching esoteric taan to taan with the imposing sitar, was incredible. Finally, the Pratham tarang had arrived on the classical music scene.
My journey with this instrument began in the 1950s in the form of the toy-like bulbul tarang. I was in secondary school at the time. This simple instrument had half a dozen strings fixed clumsily at both ends. The tightening mechanism too was primitive. One had to have a discerning ear to keep all the strings tuned,...
