• Dinesh Ghate ‘Jain’ | dinesh@swaraalap.com

Make music not war always because I believed that music is flowing. You go anywhere and you will come across the music. It can be through water, breeze, trees, etc. Similarly, Music can be created by man from any equipment, instrument, in fact, any object and material. These thoughts were proven right while I was in a conversation with author Atul Merchant ‘Jataayu’.

In a random discussion with him, he shared an insight from his book “Annapurna Devi – The Untold Story of a Reclusive Genius.” The book is about an artiste who ceases to be a seeker the moment she achieves stardom. The layers of her life are beautifully presented. Each chapter throws light on the spiritual side of humans and also evokes emotion. That makes you feel the untold stories.

The instance he shared was about the creation of Acharya Allauddin Khan and it made me believe Music is everywhere if you are a creator your focus will be on the creation and its end goal not on the uses and process. The incident is of the time when Military science developed rapidly during the First World War. The smoothbore barrels of guns were replaced by rifled barrels. Since the princely state of Maihar was under the British Crown, H.H. Brijnathsingh was awarded the KCIE (Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire). They too followed suit and adopted the prescribed changes in their arsenal.

Once, Baba (Acharya Allauddin Khan) was taking a stroll with Brijnathsinghji outside the palace, when he accidentally stepped on some discarded smoothbore barrels dumped there. The hollow barrels produced a sonorous sound that amused Baba. He inquired,

Baba enquired, “What are these pipes for?” “These are the discarded barrels of the guns,” Brijnathsinghji explained. “What are you going to do with them? “All will be sold as scrap to a metal refinery.” “Can I take some of these, Baba asked?” “What are you going to do with them?” “I want to make a musical instrument.”

Fascinated by the idea, Brijnathsinghji allowed him to take as many as he wanted. Baba collected the barrels and cut them into various lengths to match the notes of the standard musical scale. And later arranged them in the format of piano keys. The instrument resembles a Glockenspiel. The difference was that Baba used metal barrels instead of metal bars. Baba named the instrument ‘Naal-Tarang’. Naal means barrel and Tarang means waves, as in sound waves.