Hi,
I had a look at my instructors sitar the other day. It is a Kartar & sons, and about 18 yrs old. The sitar sounds very sweet (a touch on the quiet side), but what I was surprised about is the jawari, which is cold to the touch and shiny. The sitar doesn't strike me as a very high end model. The neck is fairly thin, the tarab pegs are fairly thin, but the decor is very nicely done.
Was ivory a popular material for jawari a few decades ago? Or is this some type of stone?
Ashok Pathak showed me his Kanai Lal Surbahar and told me that the bridge and all the decoration was done in Ivory. His Surbahar is (I think) over a hundred years old. It belonged to his grandfather. So, more instruments had ivory jawari . .guess there were a lot more elephants around in those days.
