The vichitra veena, a voluminous instrument that sits grandly on two capacious gourds and ends in an elegant peacock head. A modern form of the ektantri veena, it predates other more commonly used varieties of the veena in Hindustani classical music such as the saraswati veena and rudra veena.

The rather unwieldy instrument, which can be up to five feet long, cannot be rested on the body but must be laid down flat on the stage. You need good muscle strength in your arms to play the instrument because your elbows are suspended in the air as your perform. No wonder then it is an instrument few artistes have mastered .A rare and difficult instrument to play Vichitra veena does not have frets, hence notes have to be produced by sheer dint of practice in tandem with a pair of well tuned ears.

The vichitra veena is also called batta been – the round stone used to play it is also called batta, and been is the colloquial word for veena. It has six playing strings, 12 sympathetic strings and two high-pitched chikari strings mainly for the climactic fast-paced jhala phase of the recital. The musician keeps the instrument on the floor and plucks the strings with a steel wire plectrum worn on the right hand. The batta is held in the left hand as it slides across the strings to produce the notes.
It is not difficult to see why the vichitra veena is played so rarely and then too only by men. It is a huge instrument, with two voluminous gourds and an unwieldy shape that does not allow it to be rested on the body. It is laid flat on the ground and played with the artiste's arms bent in the air, and this means using considerable bicep power to pull off a long concert. It has no frets to guide the player and the notes have to be wrung out with a large glass pebble slid along the strings. Predictably, it needs rigorous riyaaz and a very practised ear to master the vichitra veena.

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