An enduring love for percussion

Tabla player Rimpa Siva was just three-year-old when got interested in the musical instrument. Being the daughter of Pandit Swapan Siva, the famous tabla player in Kolkata, she wanted to try it. Rimpa’s choice was tabla but, her father asked her to try other vocals or sitar instead.

Her father never knew that she will take the legacy of the gharana. “I was five-year-old when my father started giving me lessons,” says Rimpa Siva, who was in the Hyderabad for Jhankar Festival, Season 4. Rimpa was eight when she gave her first stage performance.

It was easy for her to become a tabla player because her grandfather Sharada Prasad Siva was a vocalist and her father Pandit Swapan was a tabla player, and being part of musical family, it was easy for Rimpa to take up this profession.
The 32-year-old table player, Rimpa Siva got Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar 2017 from the Sangeet Natak Akademi. Rimpa feels that today women playing tabla is common. “In early days it was a rare thing but today women playing the tabla is being appreciated by the audience. Gender is not an issue, it is concentration and focus that matters.” She is also a founder of all-woman band 'Nari Shakti'.

She is known for her technical virtuosity and mastery of compositions unique to the Farukhabad lineage. She says that the classical art is famous worldwide. She also mentioned that Zakir Hussain is her favourite tabla player.

About Hyderabad she says, “The city of Nizams is a place where music is much appreciated. I would always love to come back and perform here.” “Tabla mera sab kuch hai, mujhe yahi karna hai sari zindagi (It is everything in my life, I want to play throughout my life)” she adds .