In a little shop opposite Chintadripet police station, a 25-year-old Taylor guitar sleeps dead in a dusty, dirty case. Its neck has warped, fingerboard has loosened and alignment has waned, but there is still hope. For amidst the ordered chaos of hanging electric guitars, violins, cellos and mandolins, sit three men who’ve inherited the art of bringing string instruments to life — the Sah brothers — Nagu, Venkoba and Krishna. This year, their quiet establishment ‘Tulsi Guitars — Madras Musical Craft’ enters its fifth decade of handcrafting and restoring string instruments, of breathing relevance into the dying art of luthiering.
The story of their beginnings is hidden in an antique chest of drawers that stands among rows of bottled machine heads and brass frets, nuts and bolts, screws and strings. From inside it, Nagu pulls out three iron tools, each the length of his palm, that his father, Tulsi, handmade in the 1960s. Tulsi came to Madras looking for work beyond the rice mills his family owned in Kancheepuram. He apprenticed with the town’s then handful of musical instrument makers until he began his own home enterprise, fashioning ukeles for Anglo-Indian families in Pudupet and Chintadripet.
His reputation grew with his business, expanding into violins and guitars, selling them door to door and at Moore Market, until 1973, when he opened Tulsi Guitars, enlisting his son, Kuppuswamy, then in Class X as help. Nagu, Venkoba and Krishna joined him, each after Class XII, and have kept at it since, occasionally still using the tools their father handcrafted. A photograph of tall, lean Tulsi with a guitar in hand still graces their shop, and their business cards.
In the 40 years of their existence, the Indian music industry has boomed and the burgeoning market of musical instruments has been overtaken by imported mass-produced makes. While internationally, handcrafted instruments have cult status, their Indian counterparts are far less regarded. At Tulsi, a guitar begins as planks of mahogany, rosewood or maple tree that are seasoned over months, cut into jigs and gently bent into shape after soaking in hot water. “It takes good hands to bend, not break,” says Venkoba. A single plank of hardwood makes the fingerboard; back and front boards come next, followed by metal fittings, sanding, finishing, painting and polishing. While Venkoba specialises in the electronic accessorising, Nagu manages sync and alignment and Krishna, the final touches. Tulsi’s grandson, Kushal, now handles the heavyweight construction stage at a modest unit in Choolai. While a Tulsi custom-made takes over two months to arrive, the market has swung toward over-the-counter cheaper Chinese models.
Tulsi’s luthiers survive today because they’ve kept their craft compatible with the changing times. Kumar, Tulsi’s grandson who now manages their website and communications, says their forte in the last five years has been handcrafting mandolins, violins, cellos, guitars and veenas with electronic pickups, for acoustic stage instruments are fast disappearing. “From violinist V.S. Narasimhan and V.V. Ravi and mandolin players U. Srinivas and the Usha sisters, to veena players, Revathi Krishna and Rajesh Vaidya, we’ve worked with numerous musicians on electronic pickups, as it takes over 10 to 15 trials with different pickups till you achieve the exact sound the musician is known for.”
Tulsi’s other goldmine has been in servicing almost every brand of international instrument make, for few are suited for Indian climates or local musicians’ hands and needs. Their clients include renowned guitarists Keba Jeremiah, Keith Peters, Steve Vatz, Sanjeev T. among several others. “Expensive imported guitars often have to be adjusted for Indian playability, without losing its originality. That balance between good volume and harmonics is a fine one,” says Venkoba.
What the Tulsi brothers love most though, is a good customising challenge. In 2004, they built Benny Prasad’s first guitar with a bongo within it, and in 2006, they upgraded it to include two bongos and a 14-string harp. Over the years they’ve built several double-necked and triple-necked guitars, some of Chennai’s earliest fibre-backed guitars, and most-recently a ‘yuva veena’, essentially a ‘scalloped guitar’ meant for Carnatic concerts, for Balu Vishwanath, veena stalwart R. Pichumani Iyer’s son. “If you’ve imagined up any string instrument, we now have the technical know-how to create it,” says Venkoba.
Venkoba often wonders aloud how his father built the tools he did without the Internet and today’s technology. The family, now, have an online presence and are virtually connected to a network of 50-odd luthiers worldwide with whom they share and glean latest developments. While Tulsi’s grandchildren are in the business, the fourth generation is too young to take over just yet. “Give my kids a guitar, and they’ll pull the strings out,” laughs Kumar.
For now, that priced Taylor guitar sits just behind him, waiting to start singing again in the experienced hands of the Tulsi luthiers.
