Hemen & Co.

His sitar broke, so he fixed it himself. That is how the most important sarod workshop in India began.

Hemendra Chandra Sen came to Calcutta from East Bengal at the age of thirteen, wanting to learn music. He became a disciple of the sitar player Ustad Ali Ahmed Khan, brother of the legendary Baba Allauddin Khan. When his own instrument broke he repaired it himself, well enough that his teacher told him to make instruments for a living. He took the advice, and was soon building sitars for Ali Ahmed Khan and his students.

Then Ayet Ali Khan, Allauddin's other brother and the man who built Ali Akbar Khan's sarod, showed him how to make a sarod. That is the moment the workshop's reputation was made. Hemen & Co opened in the 1940s on Rash Behari Avenue, a few hundred metres from Hiren Roy's shop, and together with Ali Akbar Khan and Allauddin Khan, Hemen became central to the development of the modern Maihar-style sarod.

What his sarods are known for is sustain and sonority, in a plain, classical design with no decoration to distract from it. Ali Akbar Khan, Ravi Shankar, Annapurna Devi, Bahadur Khan and Amjad Ali Khan all depended on him for instruments and repairs. Practically every sarod maker working today learned from Hemen directly or from someone who did.

He received the Hafiz Ali Khan Award from the Prime Minister of India for his lifetime's work. He died in January 2010 at eighty-seven, having come into the shop and worked until the last day of his life. His sons Ratan and Tapan continue the workshop.

Alongside sarods, Hemen & Co build sitars, tanpuras, tanpuris, esrajs and dotaras. The large tanpuras are particularly regarded.

See Sarod, Tanpura/Tambura and Tanpura Brands.