In a small Chennai workshop, 28-year-old Tharun Sekar meticulously carves the wooden frame of a musical instrument that had nearly vanished from Indian culture. This instrument, the Yazh, is a 2000-year-old harp-like string instrument once favoured by Tamil kings and celebrated in the third Sangam-era literature.

For centuries, it remained confined to history books and museum displays — until Tharun took on the challenge of reviving it. Founder of Uru Instruments, Tharun is on a mission to revive and modernise long-lost traditional Indian instruments and take them to the global audience.

A quest to revive traditional instruments

Tharun’s passion for instruments began early. “I was making guitars when I was 16 years old since we couldn’t find many guitars in Madurai,” shares Tharun, an experience that laid the foundation for his journey into instrument-making.

In 2017, an internship in Pondicherry as a part of his architecture course introduced him to various aspects of instrument making. “I was fortunate to learn from luthier Erisaneogy for a year. I learnt to make acoustic, electric guitars and the ukulele,” he adds.

“After finishing college, I was considering instrument-making full-time,” says Tharun. “While Western instruments are popular, I was driven by the question of why our instruments weren’t reaching a global audience.”

He explains, “While we have been manufacturing our musical instruments in the same design for a long time, I wanted to present them according to modern standards in the global market.” This vision led him to launch ‘Uru Instruments’ in 2019 with the idea of making a global appeal to the rooted Indian instruments.

Reinventing the Yazh

The Yazh was not Tharun’s initial choice for reinvention — he had also considered the Veena and a few instruments from West Bengal. However, a conversation with his friend changed everything. “I came across Yazh through my friend Shiva. At that time, he was involved in architectural documentation like the one in Keezhadi. He asked me to make a Yazh.”

Intrigued, Tharun delved into research and was shocked to realise how little was known about the instrument. “I realised that we don’t have a playable instrument named Yazh at all in the market.........

© The Better India