Harping on these strings

The santoor is pure melody and peace. It’s a beautiful musical instrument to hear, any time of the day. The reason I chose it for this column is two-fold. One happy, one sad. The former is that Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, who everybody associates the instrument with, will turn 80 on Saturday.

As for the unfortunate bit, we lost Pandit Ulhas Bapat, senior santoor player, last week at the age of 67. He not only explored the instrument in Hindustani classical music, but regularly played with music director R.D. Burman from the 1978 film Ghar till his last film 1942: A Love Story in 1994.

Sharma has of course been the pioneer, the visionary, the ambassador of the instrument. It’s played in Sufiana and Kashmiri folk music, but Sharma, under the guidance of his father Pandit Uma Dutt Sharma, made it well-known in Hindustani classical circles. Besides his solo renditions, he is known for his

jugalbandis with flautist Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, with whom he composed film music under the name Shiv-Hari. The two also teamed up with guitarist Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra on the super-successful 1967 album

Call Of The Valley . All this information may be familiar among aficionados. The attempt here is to make lay listeners more aware of instrument's beauty.

Trapezoid in shape and played by striking a pair of mallets, the ancestral version of the santoor is said to have evolved in Mesopotamia around 900 BC. It later came to Iraq and India. In Sanskrit texts, it was known as the shata-tantri veena or hundred-stringed instrument.

Similar instruments like the hammered dulcimer, hackbrett and cimbalom became popular in North America and Europe. There were variants in China, Japan and Korea too. In India, a typical santoor has two sets of bridges, with a three-octave range, and is tuned through pegs located on the musician's right.

While Sharma is known to have brought the instrument into mainstream recognition, other main performers have been Bhajan Sopori, Tarun Bhattacharya and Snehal Muzoomdar. Sharma's disciples include Dhananjay Daithankar, Satish Vyas, Nandkishore Muley, R. Visweswaran and Rahul Sharma, Shiv-ji's son. Sopori's son Abhay has also established himself as a proficient player of the instrument.

Musicians such as Rahul Sharma and Abhay Sopori have been taking the instrument to newer heights. Besides classical music, Rahul has released a string of new age albums, and has collaborated with pianist Richard Clayderman, saxophonist Kenny G, world music group Deep Forest and Egyptian oud player Georges Kazazian. Abhay has played live with conductor Zubin Mehta.

I personally have had a 22-year-old association with Sharma. Tall and handsome, with that unique crop of long curly hair, he has always come across as serene, charming and dignified. Just like the wonderful instrument he popularised. Knowing him, he will probably say age is just a number, and smile and blush like a teenager.