The open ring of bare skin between the black patch and the rim — home of the sustained tones.
The exposed ring of skin between syahi and kinar — also called sur or lav. Strokes here draw the head's fullest sustained tone: Tin speaks from the maidan, and the open resonance of the drum lives in this zone.
Its width and evenness affect tuning; makers judge a head partly by how true the maidan sounds around its full circle. Players refine their contact points here constantly, since a few millimeters' drift changes the tone color audibly.
Further reading
Rebecca Stewart, The Tabla in Perspective (PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1974).
