SaNiDhya: A Promising Band

Started in the year 2004, during IIT-Delhi musical festival, now SaNiDhya band is gaining acclamation for its stout standing with cause orientation. To produce meaningful music and pursue stubbornness to sustain its qualities level is foremost among the priorities of this band-utter dedication and commitment, of course not the incentive of dough which brings these all versatile artists together despite hailing from amazingly diverse background.
Experiment and innovation lies in the core action of SaNiDhya that always enabled it to produce sound and original creative stuffs-their noble composition for the national song “Vande Matram”{which receives a standing ovation each time whenever its performed}and other experiments with folk music entrusted with rich legacies of Indian terrain strikes the note each time in awesome manners.

My encounter to this energetic and flamboyant musical band happened co-incidentally during the recent Bharat Rang Mahotsava festival of National School of Drama where after an accomplishment of meeting at Mandi House, I received intimation from one of my journalist friend to join the evening with new band performers that is performing very well.
Indeed it was a revelation as I entered the space, it was quite blessing for me to listen a fine fusion of a Maithili folk with some Marathi bit which was vehemently denying the chauvinistic advances of hate politics on the lingual-regional ground. Suddenly I recognized the protagonist of Maithili voice-Pravesh Mallick whose work I have been contemplating since the year 1997 when first saw his performances in my own familiar premises.

For a while, it was surprising for me to see him heading the group of band as earlier witnessing his sound leaning towards classical and folk format nevertheless he seems me equally capable in present format as well with improved Hindi phonetic which is an outcome of his consistent dwelling in Delhi over last seven-eight years.
In his capacity, he carrying the responsibility for the compositions and purity of music; Sudheer and Lalit translate this melody by their voices; Mohammad Fahim adds dramatic element into the singing by his contrast voice and powerful lyrics. Ranzan on the lead guitar brings with him rich experience and charisma; Aniruddh with his classical background and versatility, easily poised to accommodate in diverse roles that of a vocalist, violinist, guitarist etc-Jude with bass guitar lends support and rhythms to the compositions and last the duo Milind and Ramesh form the core of the band with their expertise in percussions.

Indeed the cohesion among these band members reflects their value for bond of sharing among peers and in general. Geographically too they resembles very unique-Pravesh Mallick(he is still pursuing advance studies in music from Delhi University}, Ramesh Mallick,Ranjen and Lalit Kamat are from the Terai region of Nepal and they all are trained at prestigious Gandharva Mahavidyalaya {Delhi}-Aniruddh Som, who is hailing from the great music loving city of Kolkata, did his B.Com from St. Xavier’s college {Kolkata} and presently pursuing diploma in music from Trinity college {London}…hope he will replicate the success story of A.R.Rahman like his choice of academics.
So, the case with other legion of this band-Milind Trivedi, a disciple of Shri Rueban Narayan and catalyst of this band; Mohammad Fahim adds the gravity with his Sufi stuffs; Jude Manuel with a background of mainstream Jazz, the son of late Joseph Manuel-cousin of Harlod Manuel of All India Radio. Ranjen is master guitarist with his great experimentative wit; Sudhir Rikhari-the actor, director from Bela theatre is still learning Hindustani classical vocal from Gandharva Mahavidyalaya.

He has done his masters degree in Hindustani classical music from Khairagarh University, recently performed at many places as a lead singer with the world famed, Indian Ocean band…so, with such great pastime, this band is surely deserves relentless success ahead. They have great time ahead, only they have to keep igniting the crucibles of their zeal…because at the end of day, only thing that left to revisit is solid honest practices and nothing else.
Atul Kumar Thakur
February14th2010, New Delhi
atul_mdb@rediffmail.com