The dhak

The dhak is a large barrel drum slung from the shoulder and struck with two thin canes. The player, the dhaki, often decorates it with plumes of white feathers.

Its beat carries every moment of the puja, from the aarti to the sandhi puja, and rises to a roar at the immersion. For many, the sound of the dhak is the sound of the festival itself.

The dhakis are craftsmen of rhythm, many of them coming from the districts of Bengal into the city for the four days, carrying their drums by train and hiring out to pandals for the season. The dhak itself is hollowed from a single trunk and headed with hide, worn high on the chest, and often dressed with a spray of white feathers that shake with every stroke.

There is a beat for every moment, and a good dhaki changes them without being told, a slow roll for the arati, a driving tempo for the pushpanjali, and the furious, unbroken thunder of the sandhi puja, when the dhak plays alongside the kansar bell and the conch as the goddess turns from Durga to Chamunda.

At the immersion the dhak turns loud and almost defiant, walking the idol to the water with the crowd dancing behind it. For a Bengali far from home, one bar of that beat on a phone can bring the whole festival back. The dhak keeps no written score; it is learned by ear and passed down a family, and it is, more than any single sight, the sound of Durga Puja.