<b>Newsmaker</b>: Letting his music speak for himself

Sandeep Das is creating a following for traditional Indian music in the West

It was a complaint from his school teacher while he was growing up in Patna that heralded Sandeep Das’s journey into the world of music. He had been disturbing the class by tapping the desk and his feet. “Please take him to a doctor,” was the irate school teacher’s suggestion to the young boy’s father, K N Das. However, his father, who was a music aficionado and enjoyed holding bai thaks at home, instead gifted him a tabla set. And that’s how Das’s musical story began.

When Das turned nine, his father approached Pandit Kishan Maharaj of the Benaras gharana