A Indian friend sent these bansuri flutes over to me. One is a E and the other is a D flute. I think the key is measuredby the third tone hole? Nice tone, but the stretch is killer! 
I can cover the holes when I do a exagerated pipers grip. It is a good stretching exersise!
There is a seventh hole down farther on the E flute, I am not expected to cover that also am I? I would think it is humanly impossible! 
faints
berti
Jon, yes, you are supposed to cover the seventh hole way down near the end of the flute, but you donāt use your eleventh finger to do it, at least, I donāt. Sitting in a classical Indian cross-legged position, you cover the seventh hole with your leg, I kid you not. Try doing it. It really isnāt that hard. The resulting tone will be a half-tone lower than with the 6 finger holes covered. My Harsh Wardhan bansuri flute is made this way, and I have made a couple of flutes for Talasiga in which he requested a 7th vent hole.
Re: the flute on the left: The stretch on the flute between holes 5 and 6 is sure to create wrist problems, unless you have a monster reach!
Actually with the pipers grip stretched to the max is is reachable. It doesnāt effect the wrist much. the hole spacing between R2-R3 is 2.4"!
That is interesting about covering the last hole that way, I havenāt been able to sit in lotus position for a number of years as I have bad knees, so maybe I will use Blu tack to fill that hole and see how it soundsā¦ 
HAH! You think thatās bad, you ought to see the āBass Cā that a well-meaning friend gave me. Needless to say, itās been ādelegated as decorā in my music room.
But intriguing, Doug ā Iāve wondered what jolly giant would play that flute on more than a few occasions. So Iāll try the leg thing if I can get my sausage limbs to fold like that.
So. Wrecked hand or a dislocated hip ā¦ hmmmmm. Yoga flute!
This a tonic E it is in the key of B, so my flute is bigger then your flute! 
I saw a master Bansuri Player last summer, forgot his name, he was a little guy with little sausage fingers, but he was playing one of these flutes. With a flat pipers grip it is doable. I put blu tack on the bottom hole and it has a real nice deep reedy tone, kind of reminds me of Alfred Hitchcock Movies, like the rear window, when the killer is sneaking upā¦
Ah, I see ā¦ and oh wow, that is impressive!
The only way I can play mine is with a piperās sort of grip myself, but itās still a nightmare. I might try that blu-tack thing ā¦ although shoot, I canāt even play the flutes I play every day very well, so I donāt know if I should tackle yet another 
But thatās cool. What a moose! And thanks for the clarification. Something new every day! 
I have a couple of those, in A and G bassāI think as we measure them (ie, 6th hole). They have a gorgeous hooty tone, but the stretches are brutal. I suppose if I worked at it and used piperās grip it wouldnāt be so bad, butā¦
The tonic of the bansuri is the note sounded when 3 finger holes are closed. 6 holes closed determines the key. The same flute may be referred to by either its tonic or key. This is an E Tonic and in the key of B.
(I get a couple of Bansuri flutes an now i am an expertā¦) 
My Harsh Wardhan bansuri is a G tonic (3 holes closed) and is in the key of D (6 holes covered). The 7th hole is normally a vent hole, much as the two nonfingered vent holes on the 8-hole Irish flute. However, if you cover the 7th hole with your leg, you will get a Db or C#, whichever you prefer. Of course, if you cover the 7th hole with tape, with all finger holes covered you will be able to play the Db, but if you try to play the flute this way, the flute will then be out of tune with itself.
There has been a thread recently about what to look for in a well-made flute. A few of the writers thought that perfectly round finger holes was a characteristic of a well-made flute. I can tell you that bansuri flute makers have a different opinion. The very best bansuri flutes have oval rather than circular finger holes, if I am not mistaken, mainly because oval holes are more comfortable to cover, are easier to half-hole, and allow for more nuance in pitch.
Jon C, you donāt have to sit in a lotus position to cover that underhole. Any crossledgged or other sitting position is OK. You lower the flute when you need to. Therefore that note is mostly only played in very slow movements of the performance.
You can also do it standing up if you are accompanying a buxom singer.
Holy Toledo, what a stretch. I think Iād take sticky putty, place it over the holes, and pull it off as the note requires. Sure, itād take me an hour to play one song, but thatās the only way I could do it with my teeny mitts.
Dave
Does that hole shape facilitate meendi? (I hope I have the right term)
As for the 7th hole, the Scottish pipe chanters have 2 extra tone holes that function like the extra holes on Irish flutes. A fun atonal parlour trick that can be done while seated is to close those 2 holes with the knees while playing the bottom note. You do have to be careful if you do this in a kilt.
Cheers,
Aaron
Hi Dave,
I have small hands, but if you stretch your fingers out flat you can cover the holes, the only pressure is on the inside of your thumbs. I would like to see the bamboo that this was made from, single node @28" long. That is fast growing stuff!
Talasige, nice to hear your input, I was just kidding about the lotus posture, but I even have trouble with the āeasy poseā some yogiā¦
I was tols that this was the ābest qualityā that came from kolkata(Calcutta) a Swami friend went there and picked them out for me.
You know, itās not really that hard to use you pinkie for rh3. The adjustment period isnāt bad, as long as your finger pad will cover the hole.
This is working for me on a PVC Bb. I canāt play reels up to speed yet, but jigs and hornpipes are OK after only a couple of weeks.
More stain on the wrist thoughā¦
Thanks for your welcome Jon C. I have posted a lot about bansuri-s in many topics such as this one - click here
If you like, you can just do a search with ābansuriā and my name which is correctly spelt ātalasigaā and you will get a lot of my posts on this. If there is anything you donāt understand of what I have said please discuss with me. This includes querying any contradictions. I am always learning and devloping my understanding and my way of communicating.
Also, sometimes I refer to the bansuri as ābansiā which is another reference for it in my language - a name derived from the the word bansuri itself. Actually, in the dialect that my paternal grandfather spoke (from Braj area in India where Krishna manifested) we say bansuriya.
The āNā in bansuri is not pronounced as your normal N but is a pre-palatal nasal as occurs in French eg the Burglar of BaNff
Thanks much!
Jon
Aaron, that is an interesting thing you said about Scottish pipe chanters and shows me that involving the lower limb to play unreachable tone holes is not unique to any one trad.
The word is meend and that is as correct as we can render the word in roman script with english phonemic values. I think it would be more or less appropriate to use the word glissando for that for English speakers. However I think portamento would be even more applicable.
I cannot see that the vertical elongation of the tone holes (āovalā) would assist portamento on bansuri because one does not shade the notes by vertical coverage (up the the flute) but horizontally. This is what the bansuri pipersā grip faciiltates (amongst other things).
I hope this is not too clumsy an explanation.