nagpur citybased 23yearold tabla player ram khadse won the gold medal at the eighth cultural olympiad of performing arts held at dubai recently he competed with 15 other contestants to clinch the medal and said there was immense pressure on me to win as i was the only one representing india in tabla and losing out to foreigners in a craft which is indian would have been embarrassingthe event was organized by global council of art and culture of akhil bhartiya sanskrutik sangh pune in association with unesco khadse was the winner of the national contest and participated in tabla solo under the repertory category having learnt tabla from the age of five khadse hails from a music family and is the grandson of shehnai player mahadevrao khadse he began learning tabla from his father rajesh and later from pt ulhas bodhankar i also honed my skills by being an accompanist with sarod player shankar bhattacharya and santoor player valmiki dhande he saidin his fifteenminute performance at the competition khadse presented teen taal and an ang of jhap taal the competition was of hindustani classical music genres including dance instrumental and vocal music for tabla there were contestants from france and sri lanka also and most of them have learnt from indian gurus he saidkhadse is a ba first year student at vasantrao naik college and a high b grade artiste of all india radio he has also represented vidarbha at the rashtriya yuva mahotsav organized by sanskar bharti at mysuru i could participate in this international competition due the support i received from vidarbha gaurav sansthan and naad brahma sanstha he said