The Hindu Business Line : The music in store

Sitar for the Beatles, guitar for young hipsters, harmonium for bhajans or tanpura for the Ustads... these generations-old Delhi shops make eclectic music..

Guitars sell well in the city... "they are easy to tune and carry, not very expensive and give a trendy look... besides, boys use them to impress the girls."

Anu Priya

Sales pitch! Biba Musical Emporium in New Delhi

Anupriya

Back in the Swinging Sixties, the Beatles famously used the sitar in their performance. The decades-old Rikhi Ram and Music Co in Delhi’s Connaught Place says it sold a sitar to none less than the Beatles in 1966. Even today, Rikhi Ram’s sells T-shirts, priced Rs 650 each, featuring ‘The Beatles with their Sitar’. Established in 1949, the shop is today run by Ajay Sharma, a sitar player himself, and his wife, Vaneeta. The Capital, which largely danc es to the tune of political power, is home to several music stores that date back to the pre-Independence era.

‘The Grand’ (piano) that plays at Delhi’s Grand Hyatt, for instance, is rented from A. Godin & Co, a charming store situated in a quiet corner of the Regal Cinema building. Its windows are filled with sitars, there are harmoniums on tables, and guitars adorn the walls, but it’s the pianos — Grand and Upright — that truly characterise the shop. Its founder, Celiano Godin, had set up his first shop in Quetta, Pakistan, in 1900 and later opened branches in Mumbai, Kolkata, Mussoorie and Delhi. Established originally at Kashmere Gate in 1940, the Delhi store rapidly grew in fame. After Partition, however, the piano trade witnessed a decline in fortunes and the Delhi store remains the company’s sole surviving outlet.

Today it imports about 50 pianos a year from Stuttgart, Germany, and the sitars and guitars are made in Kolkata. The Grand and Upright pianos are priced around Rs 1 lakh and Rs 50,000, respectively. Some of the pianos are also leased out to institutions and private homes. The store says it has sold a ‘Schiedmayer’ piano to the famous rock musician Elton John, as well as sitars to Pandit Ravi Shankar and Brian Silas.

Marques & Co in Connaught Place, Onstage and New Bharat Musicals in Lajpat Nagar and Bhargavas in Daryaganj are some of the other well-known shops for music instruments in Delhi.

“A. Godin and Marques are too old now, they don’t have a market,” says Jaspal Singh, partner of Lahore Music House, in Daryaganj, which was established in 1947. “We have a three-generation-old business and keep Indian as well as Western instruments. We mainly export and partly import. We used to advertise in cinemas and newspapers, but now customers come to us because of our reputation.”

What’s playing?

The guitar (priced from Rs 1,500 to Rs 1 lakh) is the most sold instrument in the city, and Rikhi Ram’s Vaneeta attributes its popularity to the fact that it helps make a “style statement for young people”.

Says Daljeet Singh, who owns Rangarsons in Lajpat Nagar and the @ live Resto-bar in Connaught Place, “Guitar is easy to tune and carry, it’s not very expensive and gives a trendy look.” He laughingly adds, “Ladke lete hain ladkiyon ko patane ke liye, aur ladkiyan leti hain ladke patane ke liye (Boys take it to impress the girls, and girls take it to impress the boys).” His store functioned for 50 years in Connaught Place before moving to Lajpat Nagar three years ago. “Ours is a complete music store, stocking Indian to western instruments and ethnic to modern. We sell brass band instruments also, which are not found elsewhere,” says Daljeet Singh.

Highlighting the spiritual and religious importance of music and music instruments, Harbhajan Singh, the owner of Biba Musical Emporium, says: “Saraswatiji is the mother of music, Krishnaji is linked with his bansi (flute), similarly Naradji with his ektaara and Guru Nanakji with rabab.” His 19-year-old shop is located on a busy lane in Daryaganj, near the Jama Masjid. “Saaz to rishi or guru laye hain. Woh saaz karte the to rab ke saath leen ho jaate the…Is saaz se man ki shanti or sadhna milti thi. (‘Saaz’ was introduced by the rishis and gurus. Whenever they practised ‘Saaz’ they went into a trance. This helped one to meditate and attain peace of mind).”

His partner Rocky Singh, who plays the sitar and tabla, however says that many music instruments now have few takers. “Rabab, sarod, dilruba, israj and sarangi are some of the least sold instruments,” he says. Pranav, manager of Onstage Musicals, adds manjira and kartal to this list and says, “We do not have many customers for pianos, as well.”

Price of melody

Whether it is Grand, Upright, Clavinovas or Electronic, the piano is the most expensive instrument in these shops. “Piano prices range from Rs 22,000 to Rs 16 lakh,” says Amandeep Singh of Bharat Music House. With two more branches in the city, its outlet on Panchkuian Road is crowded with instruments and stands out among the profusion of furniture shops in this area. “Pianos and drums start from Rs 2 lakh. Pianos are very expensive and we don’t have many buyers; we only sell them on orders,” he says.

Contradicting him, Gulshan Ahuja, who owns a Yamaha showroom for the past five years says, “We do have customers for pianos and the demand has also increased, even though they are expensive.” Adds T.P. Bhargava, the owner of the three-storey Bhargavas & Co, “Digital pianos have no maintenance cost and are cheaper, thus they are sold more than the other pianos. But sale of pianos is a rare event altogether.”

As far as prices as concerned, some of the sitars used by professional musicians cost as much as Rs 45,000 each, says Vaneeta of Rikhi Ram.

“We make our own Indian classical instruments, each instrument taking about three to four weeks to make. We specialise in sitars,” she says, adding, “Plucking instruments have a life of 25 years at the most, after which they are used only for archival purpose. String and bowing instruments are like alcohol, the older the better.”

Besides selling a range of instruments for western and Indian classical music, Bharat Music House also manufactures harmoniums. “The prices range from Rs 3,500 to Rs 60,000. We have a turnover of Rs 3-plus crore. Although Indian handmade instruments are exempted from tax, we pay a tax of around Rs 10 lakh quarterly, as we sell other instruments also,” says Amandeep Singh.

Pranav of Onstage Musicals says there’s not much business in retail but there’s a big market at the distribution level. “We import our instruments from different companies in the US and China, and get Indian instruments from Delhi, Mumbai, Varanasi and Kolkata. We have a turnover of Rs 1.5-2 crore and, yes, we do pay tax, but let’s not get into it,” he says.

For information related to music, musical instruments, music shops, music festivals, music gurus, music laws, visit www.vibotunes.com. Also, listen to the music of the newly designed ‘Electric Sitar’ by Ajay Sharma and Sunil Narang at www.hypnoticgurus.com.