First appeared in www.scroll.in on November 8, 2014. In the past, veena was a generic name used to denote any stringed instrument.  It is for this reason that the name appeared as a suffix to many instruments, such as the rudra veena, the saraswati veena, the kacchapi veena, and the shatatantri veena. Of these, the rudra veena, also called the been, dates back several centuries.  It does not enjoy the popularity of the sitar, sarod or santoor, but it continues