Tuning into India's many musical instruments

The musical instruments played across rural India are as diverse as the countryside itself – the stringed rubab and tambourine-like khanjari of Himachal Pradesh, the banam and the gabgubi of West Bengal, the huge horn-like tarpa of Maharashtra, the swinging flute and baans baja of Chhattisgarh, the dhumsi, dhol, dholak, dhap and dollu of various states. Often, these and many others are handmade by highly-skilled craftspersons carrying forward a legacy of generations – like the nadaswaram makers of Narasingapettai, the mridangam makers of Mylapore, the creators of bamboo drums in Kasargod and of percussion instruments in Peruvemba. While many of these musical traditions are in decline, many also live on loud and clear, as these PARI stories show – still in perfect tune, reverberating across the rural landscape