‘Music helped many troubled souls in pandemic’
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Kolkata’s Tarak Biswas says lockdown didn’t hit his enterprise of creating, repairing string devices
Tarak Biswas is a type of few individuals who really make music, in the sense that he not solely performs the guitar but additionally manufactures the instrument and repairs it; and music, he says, noticed many troubled souls by means of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Many other businesses suffered, but I can’t say mine did. I kept making and selling and repairing instruments throughout the lockdown,” says Mr. Biswas, 56, who runs his household enterprise of producing string devices in a workshop hooked up to his dwelling in Tollygunge.
According to him, his father, Hrishikesh ‘Khokha’ Biswas, additionally a educated musician, was among the many first in Kolkata to start out manufacturing guitars regionally. The son too discovered to play the violin, guitar and the mandolin from completed lecturers in the town at the same time as he noticed his father chisel out string devices earlier than formally taking on the store as soon as the daddy, now over 85, selected to retire from the enterprise.
Customised devices
“Over the years I have made many customised instruments — things you won’t find anywhere else in the world, such as a combination of the guitar and the banjo. During the lockdown, I created a double-top Indian classical lap guitar, complete with 22 strings, on the request of a Bengali musician from Mumbai who asked me to give him something unique. I also made three-top mandolin, something I can call my own creation,” says Mr. Biswas, a lover of jazz and an enormous fan of B.B. King and — amongst Indian classical musicians — of Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Debashish Bhattacharya.
“The fact I remained busy throughout the pandemic shows that music helped people through the lockdown. I am sure more people were teaching and learning music. I have had people coming in the midst of the lockdown — mostly young musicians on their bikes — asking me to fix their guitars,” says Mr. Biswas, who employs three individuals on the workshop.
“I could tell that the guitar was keeping them sane in such difficult times. Some of them would tell me that since they had no income [due to the lockdown], they would pay me later. I had no problem with that because a true musician will never lie or cheat. Sure enough, they did pay me later,” he says.
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