Ready for Navratri: Getting Instruments in Shape for the Festival Season

Navratri begins on 11 October this year, Dussehra falls on 20 October, and Diwali on 8 November. Those dates follow the commonly used panchang and may shift by a day depending on the calendar your family keeps.

For anyone who plays in a bhajan mandal, accompanies garba, or simply brings the harmonium out when relatives arrive, that leaves about three weeks. In our experience three weeks is enough time to get an instrument right, and not quite enough to get it right in a hurry.

Why the workshop fills up in early October

Two things arrive together at this time of year. The rain has just stopped, so instruments are still moving as they dry out, and the festival calendar follows immediately. Every year we see the same pattern: a problem gets discovered on the evening it matters rather than in the weeks before.

A harmonium that has been in a cupboard since Holi is not ready to play. Nor is a dholak whose head has been slack since June. Neither is a difficult job. Both are three to five working days on the bench.

Harmoniums

Start with the drones, not the keys

On a kirtan or bhajan instrument the drone stops do most of the work, and they are the first thing to check because they are the easiest thing to miss. Pull each drone on its own with the bellows moving steadily and listen for whether it speaks immediately or takes a moment to catch. A drone that hesitates usually has a valve that has curled slightly while damp, and a curled valve gets worse, not better.

Then work through the keyboard note by note rather than playing a phrase. Phrases hide a weak note. Single notes do not.

Bellows and air

Pump gently a dozen times with all stops closed and listen in a quiet room. A faint hiss means air is going somewhere it should not. This is worth attending to before the season rather than after it, because a small leak in October is a patch and the same leak in February is often a recover.

Tuning

A harmonium that has been through a monsoon will usually have drifted a little. The question to ask is whether the whole instrument sounds low or whether two or three notes are sour against the rest. The first is a seasonal shift and often settles. The second needs a bench. Our notes on how tuning actually works are on the harmonium tuning page, and if the instrument needs more than tuning, the harmonium repair page explains what we can and cannot do.

Match the instrument to the singer

This is the mistake we see most often at this time of year, and it is not a mechanical one. A mandal buys a harmonium that suits the player and then finds it does not suit whoever is leading the singing. If the lead voice sits between the standard scales, a scale change instrument solves in one movement what otherwise becomes a season of transposing. If portability matters more, a compact kirtan harmonium with two or three reed banks and drone stops will carry a room without carrying much weight. The buying guide sets out the differences properly.

Dholak, dhol and tabla

Goat and buffalo skin are the most weather-sensitive materials in the house. Through the monsoon a head takes on moisture and goes slack, and the tone turns dull and heavy. As the air dries the skin tightens again, and this is when anything already weak announces itself.

Retension gradually and work around the drum, a little at each point, rather than pulling hard at one place. A head dragged to one side will not come back. If the skin has opened anywhere near the braiding, or the syahi is flaking rather than simply crazed, that head has finished and replacing it before the season is far better than discovering it during one. Measure the shell before ordering, because the number written on a head is not the number to go by. Our tabla reheading page covers this, and dholak, dholki, dhol, khol and pakhawaj sit under other percussion.

One practical note for garba and dandiya nights: a dhol played outdoors for four hours in dry October air will need retuning partway through. Take the key with you.

About the puja itself

On Mahanavami many households place their instruments for puja, and in parts of South India this is observed as Ayudha Puja. It is a good custom and it is also, every year, a source of avoidable damage.

Kumkum and haldi are powders, and powders travel. Inside a harmonium they settle on reeds and valves, where they hold moisture against metal and are very difficult to get out again. Keep them on the cloth beneath the instrument rather than on it.

Oil is the other one. A lamp near a skin head, or oil applied to the shell as part of the ritual, soaks into the skin and changes how it takes tension. Place the lamp at a distance.

Garlands hold a surprising amount of water. Fresh flowers left overnight on a harmonium lid or against a sitar gourd will leave a mark, and sometimes more than a mark. Enjoy them for the day and take them off before the night.

Lastly, if an instrument is going to sit out for the nine days, keep it away from a fan playing directly on it and away from an outside wall that has been wet for three months.

If you are buying this month

Work backwards from the date you need it. We deliver across India in seven to ten days for most products, so an order placed in the first week of October should reach you before Navratri, and there is comfortable time for Diwali. Leaving it to the week itself does not work, and courier networks are busier than usual through the festival period.

We ship worldwide from Mumbai, insured. For customers outside India, please note that we cannot accept returns on international orders, because two-way freight can cost more than the instrument. What we do instead is stay with you until it is right: we will go through setup, tuning or a fault with you over the phone, on WhatsApp or on a video call, and send parts where we can.

Payment within India is by UPI, card, cash on delivery or EMI.

Where to start

If you are choosing a harmonium, read the buying guide first. If you already have one and something is not right, the tuning page and the repair page between them cover most of what comes through our door in October. For heads, start with the reheading page.

If you would rather just ask, send a WhatsApp message or ring 98335 99433. Tell us what the instrument is, what it is doing, and when you need it by. That last part matters more this month than it does in January.