Music runs in my veins and for seven generations we’ve had musicians in the family. I began learning the guitar when I was five years old. All through school and college I learnt to play other instruments too like the harmonium and the sitar from different gurus while my parents mentored my singing.

After graduating with an honours degree in geography from Calcutta’s Asutosh College in 1983, I left for Ahmedabad where guitar guru, Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra, took me under his wing. I trained with him for 10 years.

Professionally, my first turning point was receiving the President’s medal at the All India Radio Music Competition in 1984.

I’ve also been working on redesigning the guitar since I was 15. So in 1978 I created the Indian slide guitar — the Chaturangui — with the help of a guitar company in Calcutta. The other redesigned versions of the guitar followed with the Gandharvi in 1998 and the Anandi in 2002. The idea was to make Indian ragas sound traditional and not forced on these guitars as I felt that Indian tunes didn’t sound right on the regular guitar.

Over the last 25 years I’ve collaborated with musicians from all over the world. My career got a new direction when in 2001 I met tabla maestro Zakir Hussain and jazz-fusion guitarist John McLaughlin who introduced me to Indo-jazz music. They invited me to play with them in their album Saturday Live in Bombay.

Every award has been a milestone. I won the best musician award in the Asia Pacific category at BBC’s World Music Awards in 2007. But the biggest breakthrough was the Grammy nomination in 2009 for my album Calcutta Chronicles.

I’ve just finished recording an album called Return to the Source, which is a blend of Indian and Hawaiian music, and I am also associated with the Live in Concerts series that’s promoting live music in Calcutta. I believe that life is a continuous process of learning and I want to carry on exploring various bhavas of classical ragas.

(As told to Lubna Salim)