Fifty-one year old Krishna Chandra Roy`s passion has always been to make sarinjas and dotaras - the popular musical instruments of the Rajbongshis. Though from a farming family, he possessed an innate skill for carpentry and was an avid learner. He successfully experimented with making a dotara for a village elder while still a pre-teen. He later honed his skills by spending time with Dotara perfomers and observing both their playing and the instrument itself very carefully.
Originally from Haldibari in Cooch Behar district, Krishna`s career has been chequered, to say the least: he has been a press compositor, a shuttering mechanic, a dispenser of homeopathic medicine, and a private tutor. When he first came to Siliguri as an eighteen year old, he also worked as an assistant to a carpenter.
Krishna had been making his instruments in the request of artists for years. As demand for his skills increased, he started making them commercially, starting fifteen years ago. He also makes the most exquisite miniature replicas of dotaras and sarinjas, exactly to scale.
The Covid induced lockdown, has predictably spelt disaster for Krishna. He barely gets any orders and is trying hard to survive doing temporary jobs, selling books, anything that he can lay his hands on… The few orders he has got over the past 18 months have not been able to sustain him, but Krishna soldiers on.
While there are others who make the dotara, Krishna’s expertly crafted dotaras and sarindas make him the obvious choice for folk artists in Darjeeling district.