In a corner of a dimly lit, cluttered workshop in a crowded lane in Hyderabad’s Afzal Gunj, Mohammed Nayeem is bent over a tabla. He taps its smooth, circular upper surface with his forefinger, and listens to the sound intently. He then moves the tabla around on its base, and repeats the process. He is doing an intuitive check of the sound quality and pitch.

After a minute, he rises to fetch a Metro Tuner. In the process he has to step over and around piles of ropes, a few bowls of black paste, ready-to-sell tablas and a few old ones in various stages of repair. He places the Metro Tuner against the tabla and repeats the procedure to get a numerical value for the pitch. His brother and nephew are at work at the other end of this small space, which functions as a sales outlet-cum-workshop.

Nayeem is a third-generation worker at the famous music instruments manufacturing company Akber Miya and Brothers. They make and repair various kinds of leather percussion instruments — tablas, dholaks, dholkis, and pakhawajs — used in Hindustani classical music and north-Indian folk music.

Their speciality, however, is the tabla. Their fame for making and repairing high-quality tablas goes back nearly a hundred years. Some of India’s best-known percussionists have shopped here.

Like many traditional Indian arts and crafts, it’s a family affair, the skills passed down from one generation to another. Akber Miya, Nayeem’s grandfather, was the founder of this business and renowned for his skill. Many who learnt tabla-making under him have set up shop across India. He died in 1951. His son managed the business till he died 40 years later. Now, his grandson Nayeem runs the show. Nayeem is passionate about his work, loves the instruments and business is fairly good. “We have customers from all over India, especially the four southern states and Maharashtra, and NRIs too, especially from the US.”

Nayeem and his brother proudly tell us that the legendary Allah Rakha had bought a tabla made by their grandfather Akber Miya and appreciated it; and later, his son Zakir Hussain bought one from their father. “In recent times, well-known musician Anindo Chatterjee has visited us frequently for tablas and even played for us. Another famous customer has been Anandan Sivamani. He visited our store twice, purchased our tablas and praised their sound quality both for his onstage performances and film recordings. Sivamani also played the tabla for us, and chatted briefly while having masala tea with us. Our tablas are also used in many famous Telugu TV music shows, like Paduthaa Theeyaga on ETV, for example,” says Nayeem.

It is a similar scene at Mahboob Ali Tabla Repairer in Ramkote. Here, Mohammed Shoukath has been making and repairing tablas, dholaks, dholkis and pakhawajs for the past 50 years. The business is over 100 years old. “My father was famous for his deft hands,” he says, making his voice heard above the ‘dha, dhin’ sounds of the newly made tablas. “The skills and marketing tactics have been passed down from my father to me and from me to my son,” Shoukath adds, pointing to his son, Mohammed Shahbaz. A graduate, Shahbaz is happy to work here as this is khandani karobaar (family business). “A steady job outside isn’t easy to come by, and my boss is my father,” he says.

An important point needs to be mentioned here. Unlike, say, the veenas of Bobbilli and Nuziveedu in Andhra Pradesh, in Hyderabad the tablas are not made from scratch as the shells are sourced from outside the city. However, the rest of the time-consuming work, which requires great skill, is done here.

Elsewhere in Hyderabad are the dholak makers. Migrants from Uttar Pradesh, they have been living here for the past few decades, though several of them still belong to itinerant groups. The volume of their work varies with the seasons.

They get more orders just before Ganesh Chaturthi festival, a huge celebration in the twin cities and surrounding areas.

“The dholaks are used for the dance and music at the pandals and during processions,” says Asmath Ali. The dholaks sell for ₹400-700 a piece. Sales also pick up during the other festivals like the Devi Navaratris and Jaatharas. Dholaks are also purchased for weddings and parties. “A few buy them for decoration purposes,” he adds.

Nayeem and Shoukath are, however, part of a dying breed. It is estimated that the number of music instrument makers today is half of what it was around 50 years ago; this in a city known for its quality tablas. Many have even given up the business altogether. Among those who have stayed on, many undertake only repairs and sales.

There are many reasons for this. One is that this is part of a larger Indian phenomenon wherein handmade crafts are losing out to competition from cheaper factory-made products. As handicrafts fetch less income while demanding years of training and hard physical labour, often in dingy surroundings, the younger and more educated members of these craftsmen families are taking up more lucrative careers.

Nayeem is reconciled to the fact that his children are not likely to continue his work: “This is true for most people of this generation and hence it is not easy to find many youngsters for this work. Crafting and repairing tablas is very hard work and requires years of intensive training, followed by hours of backbreaking work in small, simple, old-fashioned workshops like this one. The new generation is getting higher salaries for jobs where they sit comfortably in modern, air-conditioned offices, in front of computers. Every youngster wants an IT job!”

Aruna Chandaraju is a Hyderabad-based writer

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