As instruments go bust, musicians get the travel blues

Jayanthi Kumaresh

never travels without her companion, Veena, 35, and books her an upper berth on a train to ensure that she is undisturbed and safe. Veena incidentally is her instrument.

Thermocol, bubble wrap, cushioning cloth, pictures of gods packed in a hard case, preparations by

instrumentalists for a concert

, can get intense and despite the precautions and prayers can all be undone. Recently, city-based

Ghatam Karthick

found this out the hard way, when his clay pot broke while returning on a flight from a performance in Kolkata.

“I have travelled across the globe with my ghatams and was shocked when I reached home to find that my case was fine on the outside but my instrument inside was in pieces. It was like finding someone dead,” says Karthick, whose Manmadurai ghatam is known for its toughness. “I cannot fathom what could have gone wrong, it seems like it was thrown from a height. For an airline it is just another luggage but for the musician it is legacy and sentimental value,” says the musician, who wrote a Facebook post on his plight, pleading with airlines to take proper precautions.

An instrumentalist having trouble while travelling is not new, but what hasn’t changed is the recklessness with which instruments are handled sometimes. On Friday, sarod player Ayaan Ali Bangash posted a photograph on social media showing his instrument being mishandled by ground crew at Pune airport.

“After my bad encounters on the flight, I book a berth on the train for my veena and a seat on a flight, but as not all airlines permit the extra seat for the instrument, I have got a custommade smaller veena, with detachable decorative parts for my travels,” says Jayanthi, who also takes her larger 100-year-old veena for concerts but not without trepidation.

Rules vary for each airline. While some allow a seat to be booked, most say they have a protocol in place to handle the equipment. “At IndiGo, we believe that an instrument is a musician’s soul and we train our people to know so the instrument is marked with a heart-shaped red fragile tag. The instrument is never sent on the conveyor belt. It is hand delivered,” says an Indigo spokesman.

Paying excess baggage, fixing fragile stickers and putting in requests for handle with care, are routines musicians are used to and yet sometimes all of this doesn’t guarantee the safety of their cherished possession.

“I have seen snapped off guitar necks of fellow musicians while they were arriving for a concert. What musicians need is a ruling for instruments to be allowed as cabin baggage, or a separate section in the cargo hold,” says percussionist Sivamani.