"Back in Hyderabad we were fortunate to make a very interesting recording. As we were driving down one of the streets, Felix van Lamsweerde, my Dutch companion ... suddenly shouted to me to stop. He had spotted on a side street, two shabbily dressed women, one carrying a young baby on her hip. They were also carrying musical instruments, so we stopped and recorded them. It turned out that they were bards who sang story songs, describng the adventures of ancient heroes. More than anything else, it was the delivery of their songs which intrigued me so much. I suppose their raucous voice production is specially created to carry through the streets of a big city like Hyderabad ... They accompanied themlves on a stringed lute, an open-ended drum [Dimki or Gummati] and cymbals" (uit Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy, A Musical Journey through India 1963 - 1964. A series of ten talks given for the B.B.C. Third Programma in 1969, Department of Ethnomusicology. University of California, Los Angeles, 1988, p. 24-25)