When I was a teenager, I was completely obsessed with playing the tabla, which is a pair of hand drums used in Indian classical music. I grew up in Varanasi, a city with a huge musical tradition, so it wasn't unusual, but I took it more seriously than most.
I started at about nine, because my grandfather had played as a young man and he found me a teacher who lived two streets away. I went for lessons three evenings a week and practised for an hour every morning before school. The rhythms are incredibly complex, so you spend years memorising patterns and building up speed in your fingers. By fifteen I was performing at small local events, and I loved the feeling of locking into a rhythm with a sitar player.
I gave it up when I was seventeen, mainly because of exam pressure. I was preparing for engineering entrance exams, which in India are extremely competitive, and my parents and I decided music had to go. Then I moved to Pune for university, my teacher was far away, and somehow I never restarted. Now I'm twenty-eight and work as a civil engineer.
Would I take it up again? Yes, definitely, and I've actually been thinking about it a lot recently. The drums are still sitting in my parents' house, covered in cloth. My worry is that I've lost all my skill, and it would be humbling to start almost from the beginning. But I miss having something creative in my life that isn't connected to work or screens. I've found an online teacher, so I'm planning to bring the drums back with me after my next visit home.