In order to make the visit truly Indian, I think it’s very important to practice rag (Indian Classical singing) every morning. To sing Indian rag we would need an instrument known as a tamboura – an ancient four-stringed instrument (no frets) that is tuned to the tonic of the scale you wish to sing in and is played as a drone in the background to keep your voice in pitch. These things can be pretty big and near impossible to travel with (mine at home is about 4.5 feet in length). I thought it best to try to rent one from an instrument maker (Rikhi Ram’s Music) where I had (ten years ago) purchased my sitar and my tamboura. We had no trouble finding the place 20 minutes away by auto-rikshaw and after purchasing a miniature “back-packer” tamboura, we got directions to a nearby sari dress store.
Emily picked out two beautiful pieces of fabric to be made into Indian saris (one blue and one red). After we were invited by the shopkeepers to have chai while we waited five minutes (30 minutes Indian time) for the tailor. Emily had her measurements taken for a pick-up on Friday the 18th. Soon evening was upon us and we ate butter chicken and tawa roti back in our room. Eight PM seemed awfully late, so we finally went to bed after a long, but exciting first day…
No comments:
Post a Comment