“If you play music with passion, love and honesty, then it will nourish your soul, heal your wounds and make your life worth living” and such is the impact created by the most promising young sitarist of India, Bhagirath Bhatt.

In a generation where people are adopting western culture and listening to western music, Bhagirath Bhatt took a different path and chose to play sitar. Like many successful people his first inspiration and mentor was his father – Pankaj bhai Bhatt. His father diligently and proficiently taught him Tabla and vocals ever since he was three. From the tender age of 8 to the adolescent age of 13, he learnt the craft from Shree Chetan Bhai Shastri in Jamnagar itself. Then he moved to Mumbai at the age of 13 and honed his craft under Ustad Abdul Halim Jafer Khan Saheb till the age of 17. For him, music is endless. Thus, he still continues to enhance his skills under Ustad Asad Khan Ji of Mewati Gharana.

“Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart”. After 15 long years of learning and playing sitar, Bhagirath mastered the instrument and is now a very successful and well known Sitarist, totally immersed in music which has passed down to him through generations. His forefathers used to do Sangeet Kathas and this also reflects in his performances and makes him stand out as he combines spirituality with music. His father still performs in Morari Bapuji’s Kathas playing Tabla and singing.

ACHIEVEMENTS –

• Gold Medallist for Masters in Performing Arts with specialisation in Sitar from M S University, Vadodara
• ‘A’ Graded Radio Artist.
• An approved artist of ICCR.
• Won the All-India Youth Festival of Music in 2009.
• He has more than 500 successful solo concerts to his credit not only in India, but also in USA, UK, Canada, Switzerland, Russia, Sri Lanka, Dubai, Mauritius and many other places.
• He has played with legendary AR Rehman, Shankar Mahadevan, Amit Trivedi, Sonu Nigam, Alka Yagnik, Udit Narayan, Vishal Shekhar, Shreya Ghoshal, Sunidhi Chauhan, Bappi Da – to name a few.
• Played for Bollywood films – Padmavat, Robot 2.0, Malaal and many South Indian and Gujarati films.
• He has to his feather being part of the “Namaste Trump” inaugural programme, leading his group – Soulful Swara.
• Performances at Indian Idol, MTV Unplugged and for many other serials on Zee TV and Star Plus.
• For the first ever time in the world, he was part of the 51piece orchestration for wedding ritual ceremony which he cites as an amazing experience and credits it to Swar Aalap as well.
• The cherry on the cake was the programme “Brahmanaad” for Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Ji at Noida of 1200 sitarists with Bhagirath also being a part of the group. This performance won laurels with its mention in the Guinness book of World Records.

A very humble and down to earth person, Bhagirath attributes his success to his parents, wife, sisters and all the others in the family. “Music is the strongest form of magic” and such is the spell created by this upcoming magician of Sitar.

– Nisha Jalori ‘Ajmer’