Musician

I have learned sitar in the traditional teaching style of the Guru-Shishya Parampara since 1995. I received my initial musical training in sitar and Indian classical music in Benares. Dr Raj Bhan Singh, a renowned performer of the Gwalior gharana, instructed me there between 1999 and 2002. In the early 2000s, I shifted to Calcutta and became a student of Subroto Roy Chowdhury of the Senia gharana, who taught me between 2000 and 2004. My present teacher is Pt Manilal Nag of the Bishnupur gharana, who instructed me from 2004 to 2015. He has influenced my playing style intensively.

In 2010, I was granted a scholarship by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and moved to Calcutta to enroll in a BA course in instrumental music at Rabindra Bharati University. I completed the course with a first class result in 2013. In 2015, I completed my MA in instrumental music at the same university with the result first class with distinction. I also achieved the first division in the exam for the traditional Indian degree of Sangit Prabhakar of the Prayag Sangeet Samiti, Allahabad.

Indian Musicology has been a part of my studies in India. For the study of Indian musicological texts, I have completed three diploma courses in Bengali, Hindi and Urdu language that lasted two years each, and achieved a final result in the first division in all of them.

I have taught sitar and Indian classical music in Germany previously and have performed at various venues in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Hungary, India and Indonesia.

Ethnomusicologist

I was granted a doctoral scholarship from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and SOAS in 2015. At present I am enrolled as PhD student at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. My research is concerned with the development of Kirtan in West Bengal and in the United Kingdom in the 20th and 21st centuries.