The Harmonium Story

I was born in south India in the late 1950′s and experienced the most wonderful childhood in Gadag, Madras, Mussoorie and Allahabad.

The first Indian music I remember, though only dimly, was, Christian bhajans sung in the chapel of the seminary where my dad was a teacher. The rousing singing was accompanied by rapid runs up and down the keyboard of the harmonium and the steady beat of the tabla. Those two sounds resonated immediately with something deep inside and over the years have epitomized for me the essential sound of India.



When I was 7 our family moved to Allahabad. To that essential sound the northern seminarians added an instrument they called a banjo. You held it on your lap, pressed keys down and used a heavy pluck to strum the strings. It made a sharp, twangy sound that sounded very modern. And cool.

Some Indian classical records by Pannalal Ghosh and Bhimsen Joshi made it into our family record collection and the radio in the kitchen was always set to All India Radio from which came the current filmi hits. At the many melas (fairs) and weddings parties we visited raucous, seemingly-chaotic brass bands played those same hits late into the night.

And whenever we travelled on the trains we were sure to hear a most fundamental form of music. Blind, or otherwise disabled, beggars would jump onto the carriage and break into song accompanied often only by two flat stones which they held between their fingers and with which they clicked out a magical rhythm. I never failed to be spellbound by this spare music. As they sang and made their way through the carriage, passengers dropped coins into a bowl or the hands of a young child that served as the singer’s eyes.



Bollywood music was the ever-present background soundtrack to youth.  I loved the movies but didn’t really get the music. I preferred Santana, Creedence, Gordon Lightfoot and Dylan and would wait for many years to understand the beauty of Asha, Rafi, Hemant, Talat and Kishore.

In the early 80s I discovered Jagjit and Chitra and spent most of my university years lost in a ghazal-y world of shama and saqi. Several years in Pakistan introduced me to sufi kalam, qawwali and Punjabi/Seraiki folk music.  The musical yatra (journey) continued with stops at stations called Nusrat, Tina Sani, Farida Khanum, Cornershop, Asian Dub Foundation, A.R. Rahman, Nitin Sawhney, Bobby Cash, Nazakhat and Salamat, Reshma, Abida, Talvin Singh and Vijay Iyer.

In recent times I began to scour record shops, eBay and online sites for more. If Pakistan and India could produce such a variety of great music where was the music from Sri Lanka and Nepal? What about the Maldives and Bangladesh? Surely Afghanistan, a land that produced Nashenas, had other similar treasures to reveal?

But the further I ventured beyond the borders of India and Pakistan, the more rocky the journey became. The music was there, but it was hard to access and almost impossible to learn about. Most websites were dedicated to music from one South Asian community and they all assumed familiarity with the artists and music on offer.

Why, I grumbled, hasn’t anyone put all this music in one place? And why is the history of the hundreds of musical styles and of the stars and unsung heroes who perform them so rudimentary and incomplete?

Why, indeed!

One day, without much fanfare the idea came to me: don’t wait, create. Make it yourself.

And so, having more than a little bit of the spirit of the malang, in my blood I jumped in.  The result is before you: Harmonium. The only place on the net where lovers of all types of South Asian music from every country in that region, not just India and Pakistan, can discover, learn about and buy some of the most exciting music in the world.



We’re just starting out and the offerings are sparse for the time being but they will grow. Our vision is to be THE FIRST PLACE to go when you want music from India, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Bhutan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Come along for the journey!