Kalishankar Mahali (sitting) plays tuhila at the Tribal Culture Centre in Jamshedpur on Thursday. (Bhola Prasad)

When was the last time you heard a bottle gourd sing?

The lauki or lau is a summer cooler, chopped up fine and lightly spiced. A Bengali folk song sings paeans to the shadher lau. But in the tribal hinterland of the past, the bottle gourd used to team up with bamboo and strings to make music.

The instrument, called tuhila, was quite popular even 50 years ago. But now, the state has only a single tuhila player in Kalishankar Mahali (45) of Taantisilve village, Hijri block in Ranchi district.

It’s like a language with only one speaker left in the whole world.

Kalishankar played the tuhila at Jhankar, the exhibition of tribal instruments at Tribal Culture Centre in Sonari, Jamshedpur, which ended on Thursday. The event to promote around 16 tribal instruments, stringed, wind, membrano (percussion instruments using stretched leather) was hosted by Tribal Cultural Society, Tata Steel.

Ask him why the tuhila is almost extinct, Kalishankar smiled: “Abhi kisiko gaana bajana mein man nahi hai. Sab chahta hai ki sheher me jaakar naukri kare (Now, no tribal is interest in singing or playing instruments. Everyone wants to get a job in the city).”

Kalishankar, a matriculate, was the only one among three brothers to learn playing the tuhila from his father Dripnath Mahali, an AIR-approved artiste.

“I don’t have a degree in music. But I learnt to play the tuhila and the more common sarangi from my father. My greatest degree is my father,” he says.

But he also learnt to farm. Farming kept him and his family going.

Being the only man shouldering a dying musical legacy can make a man cynical.

“Kisko itna samay hai ki kuch bajana sikhe? Kyunki yeh paisa nahi deta hai. Bas khushi deta hai. (Who has time to learn an instrument like this? It does not pay you anything except pleasure),” he says.

He is hopeful that with the Jhankar platform, maybe, just maybe, the tuhila will survive.

“I have always wanted to teach people to promote and preserve this instrument. But nobody’s interested, I guess, not even my three sons. Two are drivers and one is a farmer. I would love to have a student,” Kalishankar said, demonstrating the instrument’s seven notes.

“You have to learn it properly as it is difficult to play. The strings are not demarcated, so you have to feel the notes,” he added.

Tribal Cultural Society has decided to conduct workshops to teach rare tribal instruments to rural students.

“We will rope in Kalishankar Mahali and artistes like him to teach such instruments to youngsters and keep the legacy alive,” said Tribal Cultural Society secretary Urmila Ekka.

Kalishankar bemoaned that the government didn’t play any role. “It is the duty of the government to preserve and promote dying art forms like these. The condition of state artistes is pathetic. But I will keep playing the tuhila as long as I live,” Mahali signed off.

Have you heard or played a rare tribal instrument?

Tell ttkhand@abpmail.com