Before a mridangam produces a single note, it stands as a study in quiet, asymmetrical balance. It is an instrument carved not for assembly-line uniformities, but to echo the organic grace of Siva’s movement: a physical embodiment of aesthetics (mrdu-anga) crafted to give voice to the delicate nuances of His grace and beatitude (kaishiki vritti).
Chiselled from a single block of dense jackfruit wood (kattam), the shell narrows toward the right head (valanthalai) to concentrate high-frequency pitch, and flares gently toward the left belly (thoppi) to harbour deep, booming bass. Its right face is a triumph of multi-layered hide engineering that acts as a frame for the central black crown: the soru (or karanai). Applied stroke by painstaking stroke using cooked rice, water, and iron slag powder (kittam), this dense disc loads the goat-skin membrane to suppress unpitched noise and yield pure overtones. Bound tightly by 16 interlocked straps of cowhide leather (pinnani), the structure holds hundreds of pounds of tension, awaiting the touch of the performer.
When a mridangist strikes the drum and the room fills with naadam, it is not the achievement of the musician alone. It is a shared moment made possible by generations of craftsmen belonging to a historical guild of artisans (like Parlandu, Shetty, Sowriar, Susainathan, and such) who have given their lives to turning wood and skin into a vibrating, living soul.
To clarify, the naadam is not a coarse acoustic sound. What the true rasika yearns for is not gross volume or mechanical speed, but an elusive, subtle sound that no microphone does justice to. Naadam is a living vibration born from the precise, fleeting contact between specific regions of the performer’s palm and fingers with the mottu and soru. When skin meets skin, the initial impact creates a vibration that immediately drives air into the hollow, wooden chamber of the kattam, where it transforms as a rich, internal resonance. The instrument then acts as a mechanical acoustic mirror: where vibration is the external spark, and resonance is its internal soul. When both align, naadam radiates like thunder following a lightning.
This subtle acoustic quest occupies the lives of those who inhabit the world of percussion. For two prominent mridangists, this devotion to naadam has evolved into a lifelong, parallel calling.
An accomplished mridangist, disciple of the legendary Karaikudi Mani Iyer, and a chartered accountant by profession, Arvind Ranganathan is a connoisseur whose fascination with the instrument’s potential has led him to collect a personal archive of over 50 mridangams. “Some were gifted by my guru; some by other greats such as Vellore Ramabhadran Sir and Palghat Rajamani Sir. Some, I have procured directly through master craftsmen. It’s a mix of various vintages; a few of them are easily almost 100 years old,” shares Arvind.
His collection is not a static museum; it is an acoustic timeline. He recalls a narrative on a desire for aesthetic pursuit, “I have heard that Palghat Mani Iyer had expressed a deep yearning to craft a mridangam out of dense sandalwood specifically to accompany the unshakeable vocal bani of Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar.” It’s clear how a legendary artiste’s pursuit is not of luxury, but a longing for a specific, ethereal resonance that would match the virtuosity of a peer he most respects.
Where Arvind preserves legacy as a collection, Trivandrum V Balaji, a prominent performing artiste and student of the titan Palghat Raghu, engages through the physical alchemy of maintenance and repair. “I learnt the art of craftsmanship from my guru. He slowly initiated it and created an interest in me. Later in my career, while traveling to the USA for six months at a time, this craft of repairing my instruments gave me great satisfaction. Then I learned the art properly from master craftsmen Selvam and Sowrirajan,” he says.
Balaji’s focus was directed toward the most delicate aspect of mridangam mechanics: the application and balancing of the soru. Working alongside legacy craftsmen, Balaji observed an extraordinary phenomenon in the workshop of Selvam (son of the legendary Parlandu). “From close observation of how Selvam operates, one will feel he is mostly deaf to ordinary world noise. But when it comes to the sound of a mridangam alone, his head will turn instantaneously. He would also precisely know where tuning is required,” he shares.
Selvam’s acute physical intuition confirms that naadam is not heard merely through the ears; it is a perceived structural vibration picked up by an innate sense — the result of aligning with the primordial nature of space itself.
Over the decades, the mridangam’s physical craft has adapted to shifting musical landscapes (kaala) and geographical realities (desa). Its pitch (sruti) remains exquisitely, notoriously sensitive — drifting with the slightest environmental fluctuation, from the dry, bone-chilling drafts of air-conditioned halls to the intense, localised heat of stage spotlights. Yet, in catering to the relentless demands of modern international travel, a far more troubling compromise has emerged: the willingness to sacrifice the instrument’s sacred form (roopa) for sheer logistical convenience. Today, craftsmen are increasingly asked to manufacture modular mridangams that can be dismantled into three or five separate pieces and reassembled with mechanical locks simply to comply with airline regulations. This raises a glaring, uncomfortable paradox for the contemporary ecosystem: if the instrument’s resonance relies on the unbroken integrity of its wooden vessel, how can we rationalise worshipping its soul while fragmenting its body for convenience?
As we gear up to celebrate Ayudha Puja, a festival dedicated to revering the very tools that allow humanity to align with its higher potential, the mridangam demands to be viewed as far more than an inanimate, portable prop. The drum is not merely held by the body; it is an extension of the body’s own earthen vessel, its etymological roots: mrit (earthen soil) and anga (a limb of the physical form) existing in complete unison. This somatic unity is precisely what makes it an Ayudham: a sacred bridge connecting the material realm (iha loka) with the transcendent (para loka). Then, why have we failed to value the Indian instrument and its ethos?