How do you play the sursingar?

Sursingar players strike the metal strings with wire. Sourindro Mohun Tagore, writing in 1877, names an iron plectrum, the java; other accounts describe wire mizrabs worn on the right-hand fingers. The instrument is held at a slant or upright, its upper part resting on the left shoulder. The fretless metal fingerboard allows glides, or meend, of up to two octaves.