{"id":8803,"date":"2019-09-09T22:00:17","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T13:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/sep\/09\/inside-hemen-co-the-tiny-kolkata-sitar-shop-that-supplied-the-beatles"},"modified":"2019-09-09T22:00:17","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T13:00:17","slug":"inside-hemen-co-the-tiny-kolkata-sitar-shop-that-supplied-the-beatles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=8803","title":{"rendered":"Inside Hemen &amp; Co: the tiny Kolkata sitar shop that supplied the Beatles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>George Harrison and Ravi Shankar were loyal customers. More than 70 years since it opened, this family business is still crafting instruments that last a lifetime<\/p>\n<p>In a dusty, crowded corner of south Kolkata, India, is a quaint 73-year-old musical instrument shop that easily goes unnoticed. Nobody chances upon Hemen &amp; Co \u2013 you have to know it\u2019s there. A no-frills, dilapidated facade conceals its worth: the shop has produced sitars, sarods, violins, guitars and more for musicians including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/georgeharrison\">George Harrison<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2016\/mar\/29\/yehudi-menuhin-by-daniel-hope-violinist\">Yehudi Menuhin<\/a> and Jethro Tull\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/musicblog\/2014\/apr\/04\/jethro-tull-ian-anderson-five-lessons-travelling-world\">Ian Anderson<\/a>, plus Indian stars such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/ravi-shankar\">Ravi<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2014\/may\/20\/anoushka-shankar-alchemy-festival\">Anoushka Shankar<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Sitars in Hemen &amp; Co are wrapped in plastic and hung from the ceiling with wires. Paint peels off the walls. At 180 sq ft, the shop is tiny; being right on the main road, dust is inevitable. Outside the shop, buses screech to a halt as the traffic lights turn red. The smell of fresh chai lingers as rabindra sangeet chimes from a speaker somewhere in the distance. A second branch down the road is only slightly larger.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/sep\/09\/inside-hemen-co-the-tiny-kolkata-sitar-shop-that-supplied-the-beatles\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>George Harrison and Ravi Shankar were loyal customers. More than 70 years since it opened, this family business is still crafting instruments that last a lifetimeIn a dusty, crowded corner of south Kolkata, India, is a quaint 73-year-old musical instru&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":487,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[71,62,425],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-india","category-music"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/487"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8806,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8803\/revisions\/8806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}