In the late ’80s, when I was studying at Scottish Church College, Calcutta, I was roped in to sing during our college fest, Caledonia. It was during a festival that I sang my composition, Sweetheart, and got propelled into the college fest circuit. That was a big turning point in my life since our band, Chandrabindoo, was born a year later, in 1989.

Most of the other band-members, including Upal and Chandril, were friends from college. A few years after the band was born, we were struggling to launch our first album, Aar Jani Na. We had recorded it with our own money and I decided to go to Mumbai with the demo cassette looking for a music producer. Singer Usha Uthup had encouraged us to keep trying and so had composer Pritam, with whom I stayed in Mumbai then. T-series finally released the cassette in 1997 launching Chandrabindoo into its most successful phase. This was another big turning point in my life.

Other successful albums like Gadha, Twaker Jatna Nin, Juju, Ebhabeo Phire Asha Jae followed. In fact, the iconic Bengali musician Gautam Chattopadhyay appreciated our work after our first album and recommended us to music companies.

At the moment we’re excited about composing for Bengali films, especially after we won a national award in 2009 for Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury’s Antaheen. We are looking forward to working with him in his next film too and also planning our next album.

(As told to Nandini Guha)