That’s probably a pipe dream for a wayward musician like me who hasn’t touched a piano in a decade. Yet, ultimately, I know the piano, like a faithful lover, has gone through practically zero itinerant variations over hundreds of years.

Panditji’s instrument, on the other hand, has a different face in every culture and on every continent, from the dulcimer in America to the 45-string version in China, all producing various beautiful melodies similar to a harp or harpsichord.

He told an audience during a workshop last week at Mumbai’s National Centre for the Performing Arts that the Iranians still claim the first manifestation of the santoor came from ancient Persia, but according to India’s resident expert, the true 100-string santoor calls only the valleys of Kashmir home. After all, the word santoor comes from the ancient Sanskrit name shata tantri veena, meaning an instrument with 100 strings.

Kashmir is also where Sharma learnt to play the instrument, a place ‘‘so inspired by nature and beauty that it’s exactly the right place for a musician to be’’.

But with just a 30-minute lesson on the fly with Panditji, in the middle of Mumbai no less, how could I possibly begin to understand the nuances of something so completely mired in its own rich history? Once I get past Panditji’s uncanny ability to put my nerves at ease, I realise I have no relationship whatsoever with this instrument, and I feel unworthy of even touching it.

I’m also in the company of photographer Paroma Mukherjee, herself a talented musician who can conjure any song, sans sheet music, when the feeling strikes. This student of Western music, who can’t play without something to read, needless to say, feels a bit out of place in a musical culture where the ability to improvise is a worshipped commodity.

So to begin, perhaps, a futile exercise, we walk into the music room on Zig Zag Road, with plush silk carpets on the floor and various photographs of father and son Rahul playing together on the walls.

Sharma unfurls his personal santoor from its case, one that has been modified by the Pandit to have 93 strings instead of the usual 100.

He gives me the two wooden mallets made of walnut the instruments to play the santoor which, when held in different ways, produce different sounds as you strike the strings. ‘‘First you have to strike, get familiar with the strings,’’ Sharma tells me, and I take one in each hand to play my first-ever santoor note.

If I were to commit myself to dedicated discipleship, Panditji says it would take me at least a year just to get familiar with striking. I’d also have to learn the Indian system of musical notation that can reside only in one’s memory, eventually facilitating the ability to improvise.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. After Panditji’s demonstration, I strike the right side of the instrument the major side from the lower D note to the higher octave D, and back down again. It’s all repetition—I’d have to do it thousands of times to execute a flawless gesture without inadvertently striking other strings.

There’s no time to even get near the left side of the instrument, which produces minor notes, let alone get into the hundreds of musical phrases or ragas that santoor players use as the basis of improvisation.

I do come away, though, feeling invigorated by music again. Producing music yourself is worlds away from listening to it on your iPod. I might even go out and buy myself a santoor.