If I had to put a date to my musical journey – it probably began in the womb. My mother is a singer and I don’t doubt that the first notes that slipped into my pre-natal consciousness were hers. She and my father were my greatest inspiration, and I fed on the creative expression that was innate to them. As a 2 year old, I would follow my father into tabla class and during these wanderings discovered my natural inclination to the instrument. This inclination turned into a passion, and at the age of 7 I started learning Tabla. For me this meant devoting a minimum of 7 hours daily, for the next 12 years! It has since helped me carve a niche for myself in this beautiful world of music.
Although training was rigorous, it was a 12 year buzz. At 8, I had my first public performance with mom, and by 13 I was working with All India Radio on numerous recordings. I won all my school, inter-school, inter-college competitions, performed local gigs and simultaneously worked with the Gujarati film industry. In 1998 I won the Classical Tabla Solo competition at national level in India.
My work with Bollywood followed this, and it was amazing to play with the artists and Directors that I had grown up admiring.
Although it was an exciting period I began to feel limited by the scope of music and wanted to push those boundaries to explore further. My first UK tour in 2001 was a timely catalyst, and I came back from India to read for M.B.A. So, it was as a student here that I began flirting with international music. The raw exposure to such diversity of music and musical traditions felt completely surreal. I have also stood as one of the Directors of International Music Week – coming to the UK has caused the kind of musical work I do to broaden. My fling with international music has become nothing less than a full blown affair!
Being a percussionist, I have played different forms of percussion with a number of bands including Fusing Naked, Rebel Uprising, UK Transculture, “El Aire” a unique experience of Flamenco Fusion spanning spiritual world music, fusion, indo-jazz, hip-hop and African drumming. Playing the BBC Summer Festival 2004 was again a motivation for me. The on-going projects have been as diverse: from playing at the Winterthur International Film Festival 2004 in Switzerland to portraying Mahatma Gandhi’s life through music at “SOAS”. I played concerts in various countries like France, Italy, Belgium, Russia, Germany, India, Spain, Switzerland to name a few. The fun doesn’t stop, I look forward to introducing my own style, both Eastern and Western, to the borderless WORLD of MUSIC.