My tabla maker Mohammed Anwar is the son of the famous old Varanasi tabla maker Shamsuddin. Anwar has been making me great tabla for several years now, and over the last year has helped me especially, in producing tabla especially made to pass Australian Quarantine's high standards, and packing and sending me numerous parcels, a big job in itself. I spent my last few days in Varanasi with him, checking tablas, bayans, puris (skins) and various accessories off of the lists of orders I had for myself and a few friends around the world, and then packing them into parcels. Sending the parcels from the post office was very frustrating: after being told by the postal clerk to wait in the queue for an hour, he then processed only 3 of my 7 parcels and asked me to join the queue again! Anyway, we gradually got the job done... Many thanks to Anwar and his sons Salman and Imran for all their help!
Anwar and son Salman. I've been teaching Salman how to send and check email, and various other computer skills, over the last couple of years. This year we got him a Skype account and I showed him where to get wi-fi on his new laptop.
Anwar and son Salman. I've been teaching Salman how to send and check email, and various other computer skills, over the last couple of years. This year we got him a Skype account and I showed him where to get wi-fi on his new laptop.
(For those interested in buying tabla or tabla skins especially in Australia, please get in touch.)
