Hemen | SiTAR FAcToRY

Yet another Hemen sitar crosses my path. This time with a seriously broken tumba and damaged lacquer.
There is a big hole in the tumba and fortunately all the pieces are still in it. It will be “puzzling” again.
Because the hole is so big, it seems like an excellent opportunity to also build a transducer internally in this sitar. 🙂
We are already going for a K&K sound Big Twin internal.

The jack connector will be built a bit further up the tumba to achieve more comfortable accessibility.

Because the tumba is rather thin and weak, I make a rounded wooden support that is glued firmly to the inside of the tumba. This way, the connection can take a bit of rough handling….

Then the two transducers are glued to the tabli on the inside. I provide a small piece of white cotton soaked in white wood glue to secure the wiring.
Once this assembly is successful, the various tumba parts are glued until the puzzle is complete. However, one small piece is missing. The hole is filled with a mixture of wood dust, plaster and wood glue.

This is followed by further finishing of the tumba with colour and the whole instrument is given another coat of finishing shellac polish.

The pardas are polished and re-tied, kuntis are cleaned and treated with chalk, new strings put on and jawari done… and there we go.

Read here an article about mounting K&K Big Twin internal external

Read here an article about mounting K&K Pure 12-String internal

Hemendra Chandra Sen, passed away in 2010, was a very well known sarod and sitarmaker. His shop was situated near Deshapriya Park in South Kolkata. There he mainly made sarods for the most world famous players such as Alauddin Khan and his son, Ali Akbar Khan, Amjad Ali Khan and the young generation Tejendra Narayan, Partha Sarathi and Kamal Mallik. But also his rare sitars became very famous. I used to lay hand on one, made in the 70’s according to the previous owner. The sitar is in good condition but some restoration work has to be done. The shellac finish needs to be re freshened, all pardas cleaned and tied up, kutis re-fitted, mounting new strings & doing jawari. Now it is ready for a second (third or fourth ??) life.