The complete drumhead assembly — layered skins, playing zones, and black patch together.
The complete drumhead assembly: a main goatskin membrane, the kinar ring layered over it, the braided gajra at the edge, and the syahi at the center. Also widely called puri. It is built as a unit by the maker and replaced as a unit when it wears out.
Heads are consumables; shells are heirlooms. A pudi announces retirement by losing its clear sur, refusing to hold tuning, or feathering at the syahi's edge. Sizing is by shell mouth diameter, and fitting a new pudi well is the better part of a drum's sound.
Further reading
Rebecca Stewart, The Tabla in Perspective (PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1974).
