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| Edited By: Dyuti Basu |Source: DNA |Updated: Aug 12, 2018, 06:25 AM IST
As the sun sets over Udaipur's Lake Pichola, a keening, soulful melody fills the air, wafts in the breeze from Gangur Ghat, all the way to Hanuman Ghat along the opposite bank. The notes of Kesariya Balam, usually sung in the Mand style of Rajasthan, are coaxed out of the Ravanhatha, an ancient instrument that has often been hailed as the precursor of the violin.
The rays of the setting sun reflect on the 17-odd strings, as Kashi Ram sits and plays old folk tunes with the intermittent old Hindi melody thrown in for tourists. He is one of a handful of musicians who hail from villages near Jodhpur, and come to the ghat to play this unique instrument for whatever alms passersby and tourists may drop on their spread-out blankets.
Traditionally the instrument has a sound box consisting of a gourd or coconut shell which has a membrane of animal hide and is attached to a hollowed-out wooden cylinder. The strings used to be either metallic or made from camel hair.
Now, these desert musicians have improvised with modern implements, while keeping the sound unadulterated. "We still use around 17 to 18 strings, although these are mostly for resonance," says Ram. "A thicker string runs along one side and this is the one that we run our bow on to eke out the sounds. We now use plastic and nylon fibres for the strings as well as metal, traditional camel hair being hard to come by."
Legend claims that the instrument came from the people of Lanka, or in other words South India, and Sri Lanka. Ravana is said to have sung devotional songs to Lord Shiva accompanied by the Ravanhatha. However, in later years, it was the royal families of Rajasthan and Gujarat under whose patronage, this stringed predecessor of the violin flourished.
Recent times, though, finds the instrument nearing extinction in India, with only a few exponents from the Northwestern reaches of Rajasthan and pockets of Gujarat. "Not many people pick up the Ravanhatha anymore," laments Ram. "But we will take this tradition forward as long as our fingers can play."
