Light stained toon wood, mirror-finished shellac surfaces, 7 playing strings (tonal range of four octaves), 13 sympathetic strings, inlay work of celluloid with stained reddish-brown engravings, base of neck decorated with simple carvings, removable upper pumpkin sound box (tumba), plastic bridges. Two hooks at the uppermost fret allow an 'unhooking' of the two lowest playing strings, preventing them from legg stricken unintentionally whilst playing fast and vigorously in a medium or high register, which would then create a dark or blurring sound. The sympathetic strings are guided into the neck at an obtuse angle over tear-proof mini-bridges, reducing the tendency of the strings to break.

The angle at which the bridge surface (jowari) has been sanded down has great influence on the sound of every sitar. If the curvature of the surface permits strong partial vibrations of the string on the bridge, a buzzing sound rich in overtones is created, which is called an open jowari. Ravi Shankar made this sound popular and Westerners often feel that this is the typical sound of a sitar.

A so-called closed jowari creates less overtones, however, its sound is more clear, concise and singing. Most Indian sitarist prefer this sound today. As a standard feature our branded sitars therefore have a somewhat closed jowari.

If played regularly and intensely, the strings dig grooves into the surface of traditional horn or bone bridges in course of time due to abrasion and thus change the relative openness or closedness of the jowaris. If sanded down later in a specific manner, the original sound can be restored or the instrument can be adjusted to a different sound. Since approximately the turn of the millennium sitars feature modern plastic bridges as standard. Their tone quality is at least equally good as traditional horn bridges. However, they show considerably less signs of abrasion and therefore don't require legg sanded down so often.

P. & BROTHERS is a very small, relatively little known family business in its third generation in Calcutta. Originally, the company was founded in Dhaka, in today’s Bangladesh. After India became independent and divided, the three sons of the founder Gopal Karmakar moved to Calcutta. Initially they worked with other musical instrument manufacturers and finally opened up a joint business under the present name in 1953. Among their customers were, e.g. Nikhil Banerjee, Kartik Kumar and Manilal Nag.

Today, Suman Karmakar is running the business, a grandson of Gopal Karmakar. Especially in a small company like this every instrument is made and checked with great individual care. As we have been continually working together with P. & BROTHERS since setting up India Instruments in 1994, they supply us with rather high quality instruments at a relatively favourable price.

P. & BROTHERS is specialised in excellent sitars and tanpuras. Suman Karmakar has been taking advice from Hiren Roy's son Barun Roy, and his sitars come as close to Barun's as one can get. After 2010 P. & BROTHERS has also taken to making wonderful harmoniums, and we carry their harmoniums since 2015.

Measure: length 126 cm, width 36 cm, depth 30 cm, weight: ca 3.2 kg
Each instrument is individually hand-crafted and might differ from our description.