Tabla Rhythms and Lalita

When I lived in Varanasi as a college student, I took tabla lessons from the late Kedar Nath Bhowmick, a professor of mathematics at Benares Hindu University. Here he is, on the left, in 1970. The other photo is me last February when I visited his home 50 years later, only to find out that he was no longer. But Mr. Bhomick’s rhythms continued to swirl around in my head all these years and they found their way into my novel, as illustrated by the following passage. RIP, Bhomickji.

“Amrita pranced to the corner of the room like a young doe in the woods and disappeared behind a screen. A minute later, she floated out unclothed except for the girdle that belonged to Kesh’s ancestors, drawing Kesh’s eyes to her hips and groin. Glittering strings of diamonds sparkled against her dark skin; she looked like a starlit sky after the monsoon rains had given the firmament a good scrubbing. One of her arms was lightened with sandalwood. She sailed over to the Victrola and placed the metal arm on the edge of the vinyl. Kesh sunk onto the bed as the downy tones of a bamboo flute swelled throughout the room. Then came the tabla, adding rhythm.

Dhira kita taka dhira kita taka dha
Dhira kita taka dhira kita taka dha
Dhira dhira kita taka
Dha thira kita taka

“My left arm is the Yamuna and the right the Ganges,” she said, waving one dark and one lightened limb like undulating rivers. Her eyes darted like black birds above the water. Her neck and torso swayed as her feet, reddened with henna, tapped to the complex rhythms. As the beats got faster and faster, the diamonds of the girdle looked like comets streaming across the night sky of her body. Her hands, joined together, pointed to her vulva, as if her loins were Prayag, the holy city where the two sacred rivers converged.”