It was the summer of 2003 when the “Bugoowalis” appeared on the scene of downtown Pune. Mumbiram just happened to be living there in the middle of the busy Vegetable Market Place. So it appeared that they were gravitating and hovering around him making those hypnotizing drone sounds. Sonabai and Laxmi were the first to show up, independently, without knowing each other. The ladies had a wooden drum hanging from the neck down till just above the knees. They carried two thin short bent sticks in their hands. With one they hit one side of the drum. They rubbed the other side of the drum with the other stick. Nobody could not notice them. They were each accompanied by a little youngster who was bare-chested and was wearing massive ankle bells that jingled loudly as he walked or danced. The youngster carried a woven whip which he swung around his body with a spectacular cracking sound. Then he would approach the shopkeepers who might hand over a small coin for a reason each his own. Mumbiram welcomed them as if he were expecting them all these years.

Others soon learned to ignore them. In Artist Mumbiram’s Rasa Universe they grew and prospered every new day. Sonabai appeared under some gray cloud in the early days. She came out of it and appeared more confident and radiant in every successive appearance. Her young boy and younger daughter inevitably accompanied her. They grew fond of visiting this man who they must have found different but interesting nonetheless. Above everything else, he treated them with utmost deferance and familiar ease.

It had started a “Silsila” of Sonabai’s daily visits to Mumbiram ‘s atelier. Sonabai’s drum was heard from a block or two away, much to the thrill and excitement of the Rasa Artist. Soon Sonabai’s sisters, sister-in-law, nieces, nephews, neighbours everybody began to arrive every morning under that lucky balcony on top of the “Lala Lajpatrai” restaurant.

On this day also, Sonabai appeared resounding her proud drum loud and clear. She rested briefly on a wooden stool never parting from her dear companion drum. That’s when this extraordinary charcoal rendering, one of Mumbiram’s fastest inspired spontaneous energetic rasaful masterpieces of all time, just ‘happened’.

The “Silsila” goes on 20 years later. Another dear soul-mate of the artist’s youth has prominently connected first with the Posters of Rasa Renaissance, then with the one-and-only “Lakhu” masterpiece and next this “Sonabai : The Harbinger with a Drum”, thereby opening up the Next Chapter in the “Distant Drummer” saga.