The music maker of Khulna

In the brown shell of a coconut, in the dried casing of a rounded pumpkin or an asymmetric gourd, in buffalo horn and of course in bamboo: Nikhil Krisna Majumder, 55, from Uttarpara village in Bagerhat's Fakirhat upazila can find in just about anything, music.

The musician and skilled instrument maker teaches many. He regularly sends handcrafted instruments to customers abroad. For Nikhil, the son of a school teacher who taught him basic music skills as a child, music has become a passion of the lifelong kind.

“I can't imagine a single moment without music,” says Nikhil. “Music is food for the mind that helps me live in peace. When I play with enthusiasm I feel spiritual calm. I've always been an avid listener of songs and after the Liberation War when I was ten years old my father taught me to play our national anthem on the harmonium. I made music my profession, though I hardly think of it as a profession. When it comes to music, I just fell in love.”

Dotara, khol, dhol, dhak, congo, mandira, mandolin: Nikhil plays them all and can make any. For flutes, of which he has crafted more than 10,000, he brought the finest bamboo specimen he could find from the Chittagong Hill Tracts to grow at his village home. To achieve perfection in a flute's tuning he considers the ultimate challenge.

“The flute is more difficult to play than other instruments,” he explains. “While any instrument will have the standard twelve distinct tones to an octave according to music theory, in the flute you will find only six. Yet to play the flute properly one has to achieve 22 distinct tones, which is really a challenge. I think a part of that is wholly inspired; there's creativity in it that relies on a kind of sixth sense.”

Yet the most difficult instrument to make was not a flute but a traditional instrument called an anandalahori, locally known as a khomok.

“I used to play one,” Nikhil recalls, “and I started teaching it too but I came to understand that to play it well I would have to learn much more. I spent long days with the khomok and tried to make one. It took 22 years to complete the task; ultimately I succeeded.”

He teaches more than 150 students instrument-making, including at both Khulna University and the Khulna University of Engineering and Technology. He has his own academy in Khulna City's Upper Jessore Road.

Every Thursday he gives free music lessons at the Muroli Folk Institution and Museum he established in 2010 in his home village. Many of Nikhil's former students work as professional musicians, at home and abroad.

“Along with fourteen classmates I took lessons from Nikhil for three years,” says Upol Kumar Das, 21, a student of Khulna University's fine arts department. “Now I can make a dotara though it is a tiresome business! One needs full dedication to do it properly.”

“Nikhil is a multitalented instrumentalist and keen folk performer,” says veteran filmmaker and Ekushey Padak recipient Tanvir Mokammel. “He has contributed music to several of my films including 'Chitra Nadir Pare', 'Lalsalu' and 'Lalon and Rabeya'.

Nikhil likes to travel village to village when he can, with the aim of fostering appreciation in the ancient instruments of Bengal among the country's younger generation.

“A person can learn music at any time in their life,” says Nikhil, “but age five or six is the prime time to enrol. If children find music amusing it's a joy that can last a lifetime. Music can do everything to make a man. He can forget mental agonies and sorrows. It's a spring of creativity to remedy unhappiness. With music, even a physically exhausted person can be mentally free.”

Nikhil believes a quality instrument is inseparable from an accomplished performance.

“I have observed hundreds of musicians. Very few can make an instrument,” he says. “Yet without one even a singer cannot perform properly; music will lose its gravity and appeal. For this reason I am dedicated to making instruments. It requires a lot of perseverance.”

Nikhil's homemade dotaras have achieved particular acclaim; hardly a day passes when he does not receive a new order for a dotara or flute from abroad. “I want to live in Khulna for the rest of my life,” he says, “I want to play my own instruments and enrich the indigenous music traditions of Bangladesh.”