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New Jersey’s Tabla Twins bring Indian drumming to the mainstream
The twins echo Tabla-maestro Zakir Hussain's sentiments that Tabla is not just an instrument, it’s a rhythm of life.
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Navya Asopa - Sun, 07, Sep 2025
- 00:22 EDT
- 315
The twins teaching other children from the neighborhood / Courtesy Navya Asopa
It is not often that one finds a young pair of twins passionate about Indian percussion instruments in the suburbs of New Jersey.
Sahil and Rohan Gandhi, aka the ‘Tabla Twins’ of Robinsville, have been juggling their 11th-grade schoolwork with the free tabla academy they founded in 2023.
“We realized that there was a shortage of teachers in our community, and that inspired us to start the academy,” said Sahil. Motivated by his father, a full-time engineer who works as a DJ on the side, Sahil started learning the hand drums at the age of five, and was later joined by his brother.
They have recently garnered attention for their eclectic music videos on Instagram.“It’s just a great way to give back to the community and promote this art that’s pretty rare,” added Rohan.
While Sahil is an ardent fan of Zakir Hussain and Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Rohan usually grooves to the tunes of Bad Bunny, which drives them to experiment more and fuse the classical world with contemporary style.
“Tabla is very unique; what it does is within all of the strands of music that create the song, it’s able to blend itself within those different strands,” explained Sahil.
The duo has been teaching about ten students in the neighborhood for two years, a mix of North and South Indians between the ages of 10 and 12. “All of these students have been amazing, really wonderful to teach. This’ll be their third year, and that’s exciting,” noted Rohan.
With their freshly published board book, titled “A Baby’s Guide to Tabla” now landing in libraries across New Jersey, they hope to tutor many more.
The twins’ mother, Bhoomi Gandhi, a risk manager by profession, was born in Gujarat and moved to the States shortly after with her parents.
The duo play both traditional and fusion numbers on their Tabla / Courtesy Navya AsopaFor her, growing up away from home meant acclimating to the American way of life. But she wanted it to look different for her kids.
She considered the tabla as a way to connect them to their Indian roots. “We wanted to give them our culture in some way. And with music, we knew that it’s a universal language, right?”
Sahil and Rohan don’t speak Gujarati or Hindi as much, but can perfectly sing Bollywood songs while practicing the tabla.
The boys are set to take different paths after high school. Sahil plans to study finance in college, while Rohan hopes to pursue marketing– choices that could take them to different places. With distance looming, they are uncertain about how they will continue to run the academy together.
Their mother, however, is confident the twins will find a way. “If they end up in separate schools, they’ll each do their own things. But one way or another, the concept of playing the tabla and cultivating it will definitely continue,” Bhoomi said with a smile.
“For us, as Zakir Hussain once said, tabla is not just an instrument, it’s a way of life,” concluded Sahil. Come what may, the passion of the ‘Tabla Twins’ is here to stay.
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