VINIKA VISWAMBHARAN | NT BUZZ
Walk into the Kala Academy on any ordinary afternoon and you may hear it before you see it, the deep, resonant thump of a mridangam warming up in one of the side rooms. The sound is unmistakable, ancient yet immediate, and at its centre is D.R. Chethan Murthy, a percussionist who has steadily become one of the most influential voices in the rare but growing revival of South Indian classical percussion in Goa.
Murthy, an A-grade All India Radio artist and among the youngest to receive that distinction at just 18, is a fourth-generation musician from Bengaluru. His musical lineage stretches back to the court of Mysuru, where his grandfather, Damodar Acharya, once played during the famed Dasara festivities. His father, a national and state award-winning musician, moved to Bengaluru and carried the family tradition forward, working across film music, teaching, mridangam, and tabla.
Murthy meanwhile started learning mridangam at four and his first performance was at the age of six. By 13, he was already accompanying legends such as Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna and Mandolin Srinivas. Awards, scholarships, and national recognitions followed in quick succession.
Ask him why he chose the mridangam in particular and the explanation becomes unexpectedly philosophical. “‘Laya’, or rhythm, is life itself,” he says. “Your heartbeat follows a rhythmic cycle. If the ‘laya’ changes, you cannot breathe. Without rhythm, nothing survives.” He explains that the mridangam is considered the father of ‘laya’, the ancestor from which numerous Indian percussion traditions emerge, including tabla, pakhawaj, Manipuri drum traditions, the maddale of Yakshagana, Odisha’s temple drums, and even Goan temple rhythms such as ghumat and shamel.
“Every state has an instrument that is descended from the mridangam. Even the Goan traditional temple drum had the twin-stroke shine on both sides, just like the mridangam. Across India, the structure changes, sometimes 32 inches long like in Manipur and sometimes smaller like the maddale in Karnataka, but the lineage is the same,” he explains.
Traditionally, Goa’s classical energy has leaned heavily toward Western orchestral music and Hindustani forms, often overshadowing Carnatic music and its rhythmic complexities. Murthy was struck by this imbalance when he joined the Kala Academy, but instead of seeing it as a disadvantage, he saw potential. “Goa has curiosity,” he says. “Once people hear the mridangam live, something opens up. They realise rhythm is not just background; it’s architecture!” His relocation to Goa in 2019 came after being selected by the Kala Academy as an accompanist for its Bharatanatyam course. While the region already had ample Bharatanatyam dancers, the absence of local mridangam accompanists meant dancers had long depended on artistes from Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, or Chennai; until Murthy stepped in.
“If we prepare Goans themselves as accompanists, the ecosystem becomes self-sustaining,” he says. Today, he teaches students at the Kala Academy, with a few Goan students beginning to take mridangam seriously. “If they learn this instrument, they can accompany dance, Carnatic music, Hindustani, film, jazz, fusion—anything. Once you learn mridangam, any percussion becomes accessible.”
Much of his work is centered not just on teaching technique, but on breaking misconceptions. The mridangam is often seen as a supporting instrument, a ‘side’ accompaniment. Murthy disagrees. He explains to students how the instrument carries the structure of an entire performance, how every syllable like ‘tha’, ‘dhi’, ‘thom’ has meaning, and how the player is both timekeeper and storyteller. His classroom is a mix of tradition and experimentation, where students learn lineage-bound compositions as well as new rhythmic patterns he creates specifically for younger learners.
One of the biggest challenges he faces is sustainability: how to keep students committed long enough to reach real proficiency. “The instrument is demanding,” he admits. “You can’t rush it. And that’s hard in an age where everything else is instant.” Yet, in Goa, something unexpected is happening. Students are not only staying; they are returning with greater seriousness. Parents who once viewed classical percussion as esoteric now attend practice sessions, and schools have begun approaching him for demonstrations and workshops.
This momentum, however, did not arrive effortlessly. Murthy had to build an ecosystem around an instrument that had almost no local infrastructure. There were no easily available skins for drum heads, no technicians familiar with mridangam repair, and no regular platform for Carnatic percussion performances. Slowly, connections were made—skilled craftsmen were located, teachers from outside Goa were brought in for collaborations, and concert organisers began placing the mridangam at the centre of ensemble performances instead of treating it as an afterthought.
People weren’t opposed to the mringangam,” he says. “They just didn’t know it.” Many Goans had never seen a mridangam up close, let alone heard a solo recital. Breaking that unfamiliarity meant starting small: open sessions, informal lecture-demonstrations, and conversations after performances. The breakthrough moment, he recalls, came when a group of school children witnessed a ‘korvai’ (a rhythmic sequence played at the end of a piece). “Their eyes widened. They had never heard rhythm used like language. That excitement told me this place was ready.”
Murthy states that one will find influences of Carnatic ‘laya’ even in Goan tabla syllabi. “The depth of the ‘talpaddhati’ (rhythmic system) comes from mridangam. If Goans learn it again, they reconnect with something that was already here,” he says. Murthy teaches with that long view in mind. “Our field is lifelong learning,” he says. “The deeper you go, the more it gives back. And if we can build that depth here in Goa, it will benefit dancers, musicians, teachers; everybody.”
For now, he continues playing, teaching, researching, and collecting rare photographs and history of the instrument. His enthusiasm is contagious. So is his mission. Today, his students range from teenagers exploring music seriously to adults rediscovering the arts after years away. What binds them is a shared sense of discovery: the realisation that the mridangam is not just an instrument from another region, but a living, evolving art form that Goa can claim as part of its own cultural growth.
Murthy sees this revival not as a trend but as a shift. “Goa has always been open to new sounds,” he says. “Sometimes, it just needs someone to knock on the door with the right rhythm.”
