from Ragas for Guitar by Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers
Accoustic Guitar, July/August 1991
On the other side of the globe, a brilliant gu1tarist named Vishwa
Mohan Bhatt continues the Indian tradition of importing and transforming
foreign instruments; violin and mandolin, for instance, have taken
on new identities and playing techniques in India. Bhatt plays
traditional ragas with a slide on a lap-style guitar he calls
the Mohan vina, which has a slew of additional strings: eight
tuned on the peghead plus 12 sympathetic strings that run below
them. Slide is a perfect vehicle for snaking Indian melodies,
and Bhatt has developed a mastery of the instrument that has to
be heard to be believed.