Mesmerizing tabla on the roof

Write while they’re still warm, Sara. I just got back from my afternoon tabla lesson and my fingers are still pounding, ready to let you in on a nice Cairo story. Because you might or might have not heard it through the grapevine, but this lady is back on Cairo grounds. Finishing my Arabic studies here last year wasn’t a closed chapter after all. ‘Maybe I should have done this, or gone there’ was spooking through my head. While trying to deny all these unaccomplished mission feelings for a while, I gave into them about a week or three ago.
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So I guess I’m a lady with a mission. Part of that mission? Tabla.
I have always been mesmerized by the sound of the tabla, the percussion instrument that comes in different shapes and colors – we girls love that – whether at local weddings in my semi-home country Tunisia, or while watching Mizo from the Egyptian band Wust al-Balad do his thing or just watching a tabla make a belly dancer perform her best, it fascinates me and it even shuts me up. And although anybody can literally hit the tabla, not everybody can play it. Although the average proud Egyptian often fails to agree.
Back to my mission. Last year I could only handle that much in the overwhelming Cairo. Improving my Arabic, getting to know places and people was truly satisfying. Also hit by the occasional seizure of laziness, I failed to look for tabla lessons. This time, there is little I can’t handle in Cairo. I got my hands on a phone number of a certain Hany, who was said to give private lessons on the rooftop of the Townhouse Gallery in Downtown, where he lives with his wife and kid. I called and we arranged to meet the day after, where else than in the Hurriya café. So basically, I had myself a blind date, which I hate because you never know who to look for. What does a tabla player look like?
Wearing a black French beret on his head, he greeted me with a big welcoming smile, although missing a whole bunch of front teeth. His personality immediately proved to be just as interesting. He used to be an Arabic teacher and now dedicates his time to theater, film and music. After a chitchat, he invited me to attend the lesson he had planned with two students of his. Great, bring me up to the roof! It turned out they actually play in this small – although surprising how many fit in there – shack in the corner of the rooftop, which is amazing. Having approved of the location, the first dum tek tek Hany got out of the tabla was just as enchanting as the rooftop view. At the end I smacked it a few times myself and Hany approved.
Since then I’ve been dragging myself up to the rooftop about twice a week and I say dragging because the way to the top is as breathtaking as the view from it … But the lessons have been quite an experience. Even though I had never handled any musical instrument before, I’m guessing Hany is more that the average music teacher. For example, we never start playing until I told him how my day was, what I had for lunch, how I find the weather and if I’d watched Egypt play football the night before.
More so, we’d sometimes get into deep, philosophical, yet humorous, discussions. One time I was offered a karkadeh tea with a piece of cake, which Hany had made himself and which got him into talking about how men cook better than women. He also loves to make fun of me when I note down the time we’re meeting for a next lesson. “Yes, that’s right, you Europeans are so organized,” he says, followed by a loud laugh. And since he found out I’m actually half Tunisian, he can’t stop mentioning Tunisian words, songs, writers he knows of. Obviously more than I do. He’s very interested in how people live, think, act in Egypt or elsewhere and we’re quite complementary with stories about that.
But when we don’t talk, we play the tabla! That means Hany plays, I follow. And I’m doing pretty well, I’ve been told. Call it a fingerspitzengefühle, an inexplicable connection between my hands and my beautiful newly purchased red ceramic tabla. During our last session we were really on the roll. What normally is a one hour playing and chatting was now an almost two hour intensive jam session. I didn’t know one could jam with a tabla, but we did. Hany even contributed by singing No Woman, No Cry by the king of jamming, Bob Marley.
Worth mentioning are definitely the reactions I get when I tell people I’m taking tabla lessons. Most foreigners tend to say that it’s really cool I’m doing this and that they’d love to join me sometimes. Egyptians usually either laugh really loud or frown until their faces take the shape of a big question mark as in “Why on earth would you want to do that?”
Another of the interesting comments are from people in the street when I would carry my tabla bag with me. Going to the Townhouse gallery from my house means I have to walk all the way through Downtown. I ‘d either get the dumb and dumber reaction that says; di tabla wella eeh? Yeah, off course it is, a tabla shaped bag usually carries a tabla! Or moving on we have those lovely officers on the corners of the streets, some of which have made themselves very unpopular, calling me a belly dancer and acting the whole thing out at arms length away. I’m not ashamed to admit the following crossed my mind: ‘Man, if you don’t stop that right now, I swear I’ll be hitting your hear instead of the tabla.’
These days I’m leaving my tabla at Hany’s place though, because I don’t really get to practice a lot at home since I would like to stay friends with my housemates. But it’s cool that I can just go up there to practice any time.
Today Hany suggested- rather seriously- to start a tabla career back in Belgium if, you know, Arabic doesn’t work out. I on the other hand am – rather not serious – still giggling about the idea of explaining a career twist like this to my parents after paying for five years of college … Imagine y’all.
BM