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Wah! Rimpa
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She started playing the tabla since she was three. Today, 19-year-old Rimpa Siva is as confident as ever
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— Pic. by S. R. Raghunathan
The only beat she loves: Tabla player Rimpa Siva
IT DOESN'T faze her that about 25 percussionists are listening to her carefully, watching her every move. Maybe she shrugs them all off as little boys who play the mridangam, I think. But when I ask her if an audience filled with musicians makes any difference, she says, "Why should I be nervous? I'm very good, I know," and looks around distractedly.
Nineteen-year-old Rimpa Siva is one of the only two renowned female tabla players in the country (the other is Anuradha Pal from Mumbai), and has been playing since she was a three-year-old living in Kolkata. Years of talking to the press makes her come up with weather-beaten, off-the-musician's-template statements such as "Music is as vast as an ocean" and "My journey of learning has only just begun", and she even knows the content of the press release by rote. But about being lauded as a child prodigy all the time, she says, "That's something people keep saying. If you ask me, it's not like I was just born and started playing a tiny tabla immediately. I never say I'm a prodigy. I wouldn't sound as good without practice." Every time I think she's going to be self-effacing and display cultivated humility, she surprises me with her unapologetic confidence: "No one has ever told me they didn't like my performance."
Enthralling sound
But really, one doesn't need any sort of classical inclination to appreciate Rimpa's gift, because the sound she creates is clearly enthralling. Open-mouthed, people just watch her, struck at how she runs her small fingers on the tabla, jerking her head up and down as she approaches a complex rendition, squeezing her eyes shut, and biting her lip pale. Sometimes, she asks Pradyut Misra, who accompanies her on the harmonium, to play softer, to pass her the tuner, etc.— all the while, moving her hands on the tabla.
At Prakrit Art Gallery for an informal session, she says, "This audience was very good. They said sabaash, wah wah, and showed that they liked what I did. I immediately went into a great mood, and instead of stopping after 15 minutes, I played for one hour!"
Rimpa has been taking lessons from her father and guru, Prof. Swapan Siva, a disciple of late Ustad Keramatullah Khan of the Farukhabad Gharana. Since her first performance in Kolkata when she was nine years old, she has travelled all over the country but says, "Unlike before, there's no special thrill about going abroad." She admits that often, she's hard-pressed for time, but "This is my profession, no? It happens."
As Rimpa goes on about a 1998 documentary film called `Rimpa Siva: Princess of Tablas', the award she won in Norway, and her scholarships from the Salt Lake Music Festival and West Bengal State Music Academy, I try to veer the dialogue towards things about her I will not find on the Internet, or her resume. "You want to know about my friends? Oh. I don't have any," she says, without any trace of regret. Siblings? "None." So what does she do when she's not playing the tabla? "Oh I check mail, do something on the computer, eat... " And then immediately, "Did I tell you about the time I played with Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia?"
After the session, Rimpa leaves a room packed with the city's young percussionists nodding their heads and tsk-tsking about the girl's fantastic skill. Again, I risk finding out if Rimpa has other plans alongside her chosen profession. She directly looks for a long while at her mother sitting beside her, smiles at me, and slowly says she knows "this is what is best" for her because she enjoys it immensely. "If someone tells me to stop playing the tabla professionally, for any reason, it's because they have no music sense." At that, mummy nods at her proudly and asks her if she'd like some ice cream.
ROHINI MOHAN
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