I am an avid music listener and
have spent my childhood in Shaniwar, Navi and Sadashiv Peth. Now when it comes
to music I have a habit of listening to the radio since morning and I used to
feel astonished when my parents, grandparents and maternal relatives used to
guess the old Bollywood songs, music directors and singers just by listening to
the initial piece of the song. I think music plays a critical role in relaxing
the mind and it can be a mood changer when you are feeling low. Well, I had an
inclination for many musical instruments I started with mouth-organ which
belongs to the family of wind instruments because it was portable, cheap and
required no setting or tuning. I had been learning guitar, which comes under
string instruments. The guitar has its
own unique charm and is an instrument which can be enjoyed at low pitch. First
things first, musical instruments and the word “easy” does not go hand in hand.
Every musical instrument is difficult and requires regular practice. There are
many self-proclaimed masters roaming in the market these days, but I don’t belong
to that category of species. I wanted to
try out an instrument which belongs to the percussion family. I was initially skeptical
since I don’t like percussion instruments since they generate loud noise. It
was during the month of June’16 when Dnyanand Kondhare who is a good friend of
mine told me his plan of starting a Dhol Tasha Pathak. He had meticulously
planned everything and explained me its various aspects.
I was delighted by the idea since
I would be able to learn Tasha right from scratch. I say so because I have
tried my luck to learn Tasha in Ramanbaug and Garware Pathak couple of years
back. The waiting (Especially for Tasha) in those Pathak’s is huge and you
simply end up playing a Dhol which happened with me for two years. Well, I did
like Dhol, but I strongly felt that the magic which Tasha has can rarely be
brought out by a Dhol.
Day 1 of learning Tasha started
with how to hold the sticks and explaining the very basics of Tasha. After the
basics were over prathemesh started teaching us some basic tunes of 2 beats and
then of 4 beats. The process as such is pretty straightforward. The lead player
plays variations and others repeat and the same goes on. Tasha players ensure
that they keep the speed constant otherwise it can mislead the people who play
Dhol. There is an inevitable blame game which happens every time between the
Dhol and Tasha leads when it comes to speed. We used to practice daily at our
dedicated place for 2 hours. It used to be a group session of one hour each. We
had a group of 12 Tasha players of which 2 were leaders. Discipline is not a onetime
activity, but it’s a habit. The punctuality of everyone, including me, was a
serious problem which surfaced out within the first few weeks. It resulted in
delay in starting the practice, most of the times. I think this is one of the cardinal
problems which most of the Dhol Tasha Pathak’s face these days. The obvious
reason being that the number of people who come from office is close to 50%. It
obviously brings out the uncontrollable factors like bosses not allowing people
to leave early, traffic of Pune, delay due to a car pulling issues to name a
few. While, punctuality and discipline are serious issues here, I don’t see an
immediate quick fix solution for it and their’s no guarantee that it won’t
repeat again next year. These are my personal views and I am sure that our
group leaders will try to align the Pathak with the best practices which we see
in this market. The ownership still lies with each one of us.
We kept on practicing some basic
and some difficult variations on Tasha for next 30-40 days. Prathemesh and
Abhishek ensured that we gradually build our expertise and they always had a contingency
plan if we fail to play right rhydum. Prathamesh and Abhishek are both talented
lead Tasha players and are good teachers.
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| Our Lead Tasha Players Abhishek & Prathemesh |
I have rarely seen people who are talented
are good when it comes to teaching or explaining things in an easy way. We
learned various pieces of Gajar, Mathadi,Gavathi to name a few. I
sincerely feel that Tasha produces some punch points which are absolutely
soothing to the ears.
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| Tasha Team |
We live in a world where people who
are accurate, perfect and beautiful are highly valued and accepted by the
society. I think any social platform wherein you learn new things from people around
you helps in keeping aside your false ego’s. The problem nowadays is everyone has
250 grams of ego and behave as if they are like the great emperor Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar. This Dhol Tasha
union helps in connecting with likeminded people who we otherwise don’t meet.
It also gives us a platform to share experiences, thoughts, ideas, failures
with others. It also helped me in reinstating the fact that one should never
judge or label anyone because it changes the programming of your mind and it is
the thoughts which are of utmost importance. Thoughts create feelings, which in
turn creates actions, actions become habit which makes an individual’s
personality. I know I am going off-track from the topic, but I think in a
social setup apart from knowledge and skills, the thoughts or the vibrations
which one generates is equally important. I think Indian people spend too much
time in discussing others, gossiping and creating negative thoughts that the
sole purpose of why they have joined a social group gets defeated. Music is a mind
game. If your mind is full of negative energy no matter how accurate and
perfect you play a Dhol or Tasha you won’t be able to produce quality music. I
think this transformation of thoughts is very important if we need to take this
unit to a different level.
The other thing which satisfies
me is that I know how to play a Tasha or maybe I have passed the basic level of
playing a Tasha.
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| That's me :) |
Why I say so, is I see people don’t live in their present
moment these days and don’t celebrate success.Instead, they continue comparing
them with others, and enter in a never ending game. There is no doubt that one
has to improve and grow in life. But this constant thought of comparing with
others only harms an individual since one always feel inferior. Even if one
reaches the pinnacle of success or becomes best in class their always remains
the fear as to how long he will be able to sustain it. I will definitely celebrate
my Tasha success with my friends while taking incremental goals for next year.
Happiness within and effort outside is what matters.
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| Dnyanand & Badal : They made the journey look simple |
Last but not the last, I salute
the overall leadership, organizing abilities and management of Dnyanand
Kondhare and Badal Awate here. They have shown unwavering focus on execution of
each and every activity that involved making this unit successful. There are
many positive takeaways for me from this 2 friends and we have many, many
memories to cherish, till we meet again in 2017 under the banner of Balgarjana
Dhol Tasha Pathak.
