I was born in Kolkata, a city in the eastern part of India, known for its colorful festivities, sinful sugary delicacies, passionate football fans and a rich musical heritage. They say every authentic Bengali family must possess a harmonium (a hand-pumped wooden musical instrument), that's how seriously we take our music.
Growing up in a family that had a few amateur singers pursuing music to various levels meant that I was forced to hear and learn whether I wanted to or not. My father was my first teacher and has been one ever since, although we never shared a direct teacher student relationship. The latter was developed with Robin Adhikari when I was five. He introduced me to the art of Tabla playing and later classical vocal music.
When I was nine, I started taking sitar lessons from Late Sunil Saha, who became a significant influence on me for the next twelve years. He initiated me in the art of sitar playing but more importantly taught me the importance of making music a part of the philosophy of simple living and high thinking, something he practiced in his life. 'Mastermoshai', as I affectionately called him was trained by an extremely illustrious group of musicians that included Ustad Dabir Khan, Pandit Shyam Ganguly, Ahindra Chakraborty and the legendary Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. He slowly unfolded the nuances of the Senia Maihar School of music to me and continued training me until his death in 2005.
The void that was created upon his sad demise was difficult to fill, but being really fortunate, I was immediately taken into the rigorous training schedule of Pandit Debaprasad Chakraborty with whom I have spent some extremely memorable moments of learning music. Debuda was trained by his father, Ahindra Chakraborty, Pandit Gokul Nag and for a significant period of time by Pandit Ajoy Sinha Roy. Debuda is an A grade artist of All India Radio and a well-known performer in the classical music arena of India and abroad. While learning with him, I began to actively play in public concerts and it was at the same that I won the State Music Academy and the Dover Lane Music Conference Awards for best instrumentalist, a testimony to his relentless pursuit of perfection in my sitar playing. Learning under him, I received the National Scholarship from the Indian Government, an experience made memorable by travelling in a train to Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh with numerous musicians from all over the country!
I spent a considerable amount of time learning from Debuda, following in the footsteps of his teachers and influences, the most prominent among them being the late Pandit Nikhil Banerjee, the reserved, saint-like towering figure of Indian classical music whom I have grown up admiring from childhood. Debuda and I shared several happy moments playing together as we taught Sitar playing to the radio audience in Kolkata or when we performed as a duet, a substantially challenging exercise for me! I go back to learn from him whenever I am back in Kolkata.
When I came to Dresden in 2009 to pursue a PhD in Molecular Biology, I was happily surprised to witness the cultural richness of the musical scene in this city. After playing the sitar at a few places in the city, I got in touch with Om Prakash Pandey, a tabla player from Leipzig who recorded with me for some radio broadcasts, thereby bringing me in touch with a number of excellent musicians in Europe. I collaborated with a few groups with whom we came up with fusion projects of Indo-Occidental variety. In the process, it did not take me long to meet Tim, who also happened to be working at the Max Planck Institute just like me. Tim is a frequent performer at gigs and an extremely good bass player! This was reason enough for me to be apprehensive about playing the Tabla with him, an instrument that I had spent very little time learning. However, once we got together and he introduced me to Guillaume, a truly gifted pianist, I witnessed what magic these two could work with well-known jazz tunes. They combined tradition with improvisation and the prospects of blending the Indian classical flavor with it seemed exciting. Ever since, it has been a very enriching experience.