Haridas Vhatkar
Born into a family of professional tabla makers from Miraj, Haridas Ramchandra Vhatkar is the third generation of his family in the craft, after his grandfather Kerappa Ramchandra Vhatkar and his father Ramchandra Kerappa Vhatkar. He took it up young, kept experimenting, and eventually moved to Mumbai with one ambition: to make a tabla set for Ustad Zakir Hussain.
He put out a sign reading “Tabla For Sale” and began selling from his own shop in 1998. Shri Yogesh Samsi showed one of those tablas to Ustad Alla Rakha, who passed the recommendation to his son — and Zakir Hussain asked Haridas to make him a set.
Haridas has since made drums for Pandit Kishan Maharaj, Pandit Arvind Mulgaonkar, Pandit Anindo Chatterjee, Pandit Suresh Talwalkar, Ustad Shafaat Ahmed Khan, Pandit Divyang Vakil and Pandit Nayan Ghosh, and counts their guidance and encouragement as part of how the work developed. He is also associated with Fazal Qureshi, Shri Vijay Ghate, Anuradha Pal, Taufiq Qureshi, Trilok Gurtu, Pandit Durgaprasad Mujumdar, Sivamani and Talvin Singh.
He is committed to passing the craft on. His sons Kishore and Manoj are the fourth generation of the Vhatkar line of tabla makers.
