A tie-dye parai: Chennai scientists colour Tamil Nadu’s traditional drum

The parai throbs with life when struck with a wooden kuchi (stick). What if it can make heads turn even without its resonant beats? For the past three years, a team of five scientists at the Chennai-based CSIR-Central Leather Research Institute have been trying to colour on the pale brown surface of the percussion instrument, made of dried buffalo hide stretched over a circular wooden frame.

They have finally succeeded — the result is a technique that can render the parai colourful, even producing tie and dye patterns on its surface. M Sathish, Senior Scientist, led the team whose research at the institute under the Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India’s CSIR, was headed by Chief Scientist M Madhan and guided by P Thanikaivelan, Director, CSIR-CLRI. The new technology has the potential to change the way parai is seen.  

“People look at the instrument with a certain disdain,” says Sathish, who works between Chennai and Kolkata. Traditionally associated with funerals, parai and the artisans who play it, many of whom are from oppressed communities, are treated below par to other classical instrumentalists and musicians. “The sole purpose of our research is to change this,” he adds. Parai has been seeing a new wave in the recent past with young men and women, and even children across Tamil Nadu embracing it.

Sathish worked closely with parai artisan M Gurunathan, who also handcrafts the instrument. “He provided us grassroots-level information from artisans across the State, which was crucial for our research,” says Sathish. Their project, funded by the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research’s Fast Track Translation Research Project, didn’t just come up with a technology to make the instrument colourful.

“We were also able to render the hide more resonant and sturdy so that artisans don’t have to keep replacing it after every four or five events like they usually do,” he adds: “The hide tends to develop fungus if exposed to moisture and the surface can sometimes have prickly hairs, making it particularly difficult to be carried abroad. We were able to resolve both these issues.”

Gurunathan, who was a bridge between the scientists and artisans, was part of the first team of eight that signed an MoU with the Institute for knowledge transfer at theRise startup conclave earlier this year in Chennai. “Most of the artisans from the team were from Dindigul, and there was also a chenda melam artisan from Kerala,” says Gurunathan. Once they grasped the nuances from the scientists, they started making colourful parai themselves.

Gurunathan, who has been making and playing parai for 24 years now, has a large database of people associated with the instrument. Thanks to him, the technology that Sathish and team came up with is gradually spreading across Tamil Nadu. “The festive season is approaching and now is when we get orders for new instruments,” says Gurunathan, adding that this year, he is experimenting with tiger skin print. “I’m also trying out Warli art, block printing, and am open to customising based on the musician’s requirements,” he adds.

Sathish says that colourful parai can also make for a collector’s item. “They can be displayed at home on the wall. Artisans are also making miniatures that can be gifted,” he says. “This will add value to the instrument, taking it to more people.” Gurunathan sees this change as part of the instrument’s evolution. “Historically, parai has taken on different forms, changing with the times,” he says. “Its current form has been prevalent only for the past 30 years or so; some hundred years ago, it had a frame made of clay.”

From painting faces on the instrument to getting shapes stencilled on it, options are now aplenty and Sathish says that more research is underway. Gurunathan regularly organises shows in colleges and corporate offices in Chennai and Bengaluru in which he displays parai, thudumbu, and urumi. He is now popularising the colourful versions of these instruments at such events.

Gurunathan’s team took a set of coloured parai to be played at an event by Anandha Traditional Arts & Music in Singapore in August this year. “Several musicians from countries such as Malaysia and China were curious about it,” he says, adding that they left behind a few to be displayed at an upcoming museum in Singapore. From an instrument that people were hesitant to touch to becoming a collector’s item, parai is on its biggest journey yet.

To buy miniatures and coloured parai, call 9884842227.