Purva Mantri Is Taking a 25-KG Dhol With Her on Upcoming U.S. Tour

Navratri has always been singer Purva Mantri’s time to shine and last year, she took her stage game to the next level by performing with a Nashik dhol slung around her neck, beating the massive drum and singing for the festival celebrations.

She says the idea to play dhol and bring in dhol players for her live ensemble came from her manager, building upon Mantri’s prior experience playing tabla and djembe on stage. “That was years back, before Covid. So I thought, what should be the new thing?” Mantri and her team brought in a dhol while she was in the thick of her daily Navratri concerts, leaving little time for rehearsal. “I could play it, but to play and sing was a major issue,” she says.

Just under a year since a video of her performing in Surat with the Nashik dhol went viral, Mantri says “everything is synced now” and she’s even set for a U.S. tour in September, carrying the dhol – weighing 25 kilograms – with her.

Mantri is well aware of the kind of attention that comes when a video goes viral – there are people ready to debunk and question the authenticity of her performance. She says, “Bohot saare logon ko lagta hai it’s a gimmick (A lot of people think it’s a gimmick), that [I’m] a singer on stage holding a prop. I was asked about it in several interviews, so I had to clarify that it’s a real dhol, it’s not a prop that I’m hanging on my shoulders to have fun. I’m actually singing and just having fun.”

The upside is that plenty of organizers – college festivals as well as for Bollywood gigs – want Mantri to incorporate the dhol in all her shows now, outside of Navratri concerts. “They want the Nashik dhol players and me playing as well,” she says. To that end, Mantri’s traveling troupe has now expanded from 12 to 16, with three dhol drums on stage playing a 15-minute segment, up from the five minutes she usually earmarked at her concerts for dhol.

That’s a lot of heavy lifting, literally. After just a few concerts at the end of last year, Mantri was at her physiotherapist in January, dealing with shoulder pain and muscle spasms “which went up to my mid-back.” She adds, “My therapist said, ‘You definitely need 10 times more strength in your shoulder.’ So yeah, I’ve started working on it.”

Mantri – who just released her cheeky new folk-pop song “Metador” with Rajasthan’s Rapperiya Baalam and producer Veer Pandya – is traveling to the U.S. for about 10 to 12 shows in September which are yet to be announced. She assures that somehow, the dhols will also make it to every show. “I want to take this international. This is one Indian act that needs to go outside. This is our Indian culture, being an Indian artist I’m doing this because I want it to reach more people,” she says.

Mantri plans to take it worldwide later in the year as well. “New Zealand, Australia, U.S. and then London is in the pipeline,” the singer adds.