 I'm going to be talking about entrepreneurship and how I've done it my way. Whenever we talk about music or the arts, we don't often talk about entrepreneurship. I think that is something that is even a bit of a taboo in the music field. Of course, certainly in the field of classical music. For me, what I experienced in the early days of my career gave me ideas to change the perception that people had of me. I realized that as a musician and I realized it quite early in my late 20s that as a musician I would not only have to bring to the stage a huge amount of talent and dexterity, aesthetics, all the qualities that make you a great musician. Those qualities I realized were not the end game, so to say. You had to have those qualities to be in the game. And having imbibed those qualities, it was important to understand how you could reach it to a wide audience, to a cross-section of people, to a wider spectrum. And then, of course, amongst other things to make a comfortable living for yourself. Through the process, one had to keep an eye on the bigger picture. Every musician has dreams of leaving behind a legacy. How is that legacy to be created? How do you create an area of influence, musical influence? Also, how do you view money? Because money is an extremely important factor for anybody. Let me explain why money is important for the musician as well. A lot of people say that if you come into a classical music field you should have the mindset that money is not something that is supposed to be really important in your life. It is the search of a musical ideal, which is a blessing. And there is no contesting that. It is a huge blessing to be a musician because you are blessed with ethereal sounds through your life. And of course, these sounds have a big, big spiritual, sociocultural impact on your own life. But if you are to do anything that veers into newer territory then it is important to have some kind of backing of money, of people, of patrons, of sponsors so that you can actually end up doing the work that is inside your head. Otherwise, it's almost impossible to do any project which is of some scale to give it a body, to give it a voice, to get it out there. So yes, that's when I realized early days that I had to be some sort of an entrepreneur. I had to take into account, so to say, a musical business model. And I must say that it's been a very, very interesting journey because I have approached my own career in a very creative way, in a very experimental way. Done things that most people thought weren't possible or shouldn't be done or couldn't be done. To come down to specifics, let us start in the beginning. I started out as a pure classical tabla player. As a tabla player, I had the immense fortune of playing with literally every top artist in India. Culminating in the greatest Pandit Ravishankarji, my Guruji, with whom I performed, I don't know how many hundreds of concerts I performed, but I performed with him for over a decade. And if we are looking at 70, 80 concerts a year, you can see how many concerts there is. So I had that huge fortune and I was travelling the world with him. What have you? Incredible experiences. But I had other things as well in my head. I also had thoughts of music composition. Seeing my Guruji Pandit Ravishankarji, I also wanted to compose, like he had composed for film, for albums, create musicals, and he had done it all. So how was I going to do that? And I realised that I couldn't do it until I had two things. One is of course I needed, I had to have a certain bent of mind, a certain amount of knowledge of the things that I was going to tread into. And for that I started preparing myself slowly and steadily. Over the years I was preparing myself, listening to music, reading. A lot of biographies of artists who had actually had diversified into different areas. So I had a sound in my head as well and a form of music. Now let's touch these areas through a fast forward for a second. The sound in my head eventually became what is called for want of a better term, the fusion sound I'm associated with. The first album and my band, which has been there for 20 years now, rhythm skate, was the first germination of that idea. And that sound was different and it had been in my head for at least five or six years. Look at the other side of the choreograph, film composition. At that point in the 90s and the late 90s I had not scored a single film. Today I have scored for I think 37 films and on to my 38 feature films. And so I figured 25 years back, 25 years back, that I had to create an area of influence. There had to be a certain amount of fame, not just quality. Without the fame, you were not to use a business terminology, you were not even a product. So you first had to have a fantastic product, which you would be introducing to the market. That product was being honed for 20, 25 years from my childhood. How I was going to play the tabla, practicing hour after hour, day after day, learning from my guru, my father, Pandit Shankar Ghosh, my other guru of kinetic music, Pandit S. Shekhar. All of that was going on through the childhood and then the product was kind of there. I was already playing with the top people in the business and culminating as I said with Pandit S. Shekhar. But how was I going to be accepted in these other avatar? How was I going to be a music composer? How was I going to be an album producer? All of these things I realized needed a certain amount of funding as well. And for that, if you had a name, then you were known to people and they would agree to fund and opportunities would increase for you. Because for a known person, opportunities are more. It is a fact of life. People don't always want to back somebody who is unknown unless the person is lucky, unless the talent is recognized and all of that. So I started thinking on those lines. How was I going to be a known product? So I did actually hone the product itself, which is the talent pool. As I said, studying film music on my own, western Hollywood scores, Bollywood music, the work that had been done in Bengal as well. Also understanding how to make albums, how to be a producer, the word producer is somebody who has a holistic view of the music being brought onto the table. Understanding all of that took me a good decade. And then I realized that now my product was ready. The next challenge, and I think that is a tougher part of the challenge, is that how do you sell the product? Because people tend to box you. So I was a classical tabla player. And to be regarded as anything else or anything more was a challenge because I think my audiences had difficulty accepting my movement from being a pure classical tabla player to being a fusion artist and remaining a pure classical tabla player at the same time. So straddling these boats was not easy. And there is inevitably a lot of criticism which comes your way because you're doing something that's out of the box. And it's not easy for people to accept something that's out of the box. Anything new that comes, anything that's out of the box, out of the ordinary scheme of things is viewed with suspicion, so to say. So I was then entering a fresh market. And let's start with the fusion music market, so to say. In early 2000, if one may say that there was literally no fusion music market, so to say. There were stores those days in the Planet M's and the music worlds, which I think seems to exist now. But those were newer entrants into the market. And even they were just about touching the space called world music or fusion music. And they didn't know where to keep my first album, Rhythm Scape. Sometimes it was sitting in Bollywood section. Sometimes it was sitting in spiritual music section in bhajans or in tumris. But finally there arrived a genre called world music. And the stores adopted that genre. They had a chart for it. And then my CD Rhythm Scape was there in those places and remained on the charts for years and years. But yeah, so there was an uphill struggle there to create that market for a new sound. And then to be doing live shows. So one thing I did realize at that point that I had to also increase my field of activity. I had to know more people. I had to meet more people, understand their tastes. And I had this feeling inside me that my fusion sound was different and it had an appeal. Especially in the youth and which is what it still retains. So I started also working on myself because I was my own product. So I wasn't separated from my product. So it wasn't Bikram Ghosh producing a bar of soap. It was Bikram Ghosh producing a Bikram Ghosh who was going to sell in X, Y and Z market. So how do you do that? Well, there is a saying in Hindi. Pehle darshan daari fir gun bichari. So I think it's very important that you first when people see you, the first look is very important. You should come across as there should be a look. There should be then a way of speaking which has a penetration. And then they look at your work. It is ironical in a sense that this is the way things are. But I realized that after I was already into my 30s when I was getting into the experimental zone. And I realized that it was not easy to change the perception from the classical tableau player to the fusion artist. And I needed to work on my physique, my body, my look. So yes, I mean, if I were able to show you a couple of pictures, you would see the contrast between the years 1997 and 2000. So yes, I experimented a lot with the way I looked. I lost 20 kilos. I grew my hair. I kept a goatee. And I've been told that I'm the first Indian classical artist to ever keep a goatee. I think that's right, but I might be wrong. But at least I didn't know of anybody who had kept a goatee. So in fact, Pandit Ravishankarji, Guruji had said to me that you're a classical artist, but the goatee makes you look like a rock artist. So I couldn't tell him then, but I did think to myself that why can a tabla player not be regarded as a rock star? What's wrong with it? So these are thoughts that were going on in my then young mind, 20, 23 years back. And so I figured, why not? And then there was also the issue of if the tabla player is always regarded as the guy who is not the main person, is often their company's who sits on the side. And while I never had any complaints with that, I loved the job I did. I also did want to have two feature and shows where I would sit in the middle and drive the music because the tabla player does not drive the music in the classical concept. So I wanted to do all of that. So I created a format, my tabla kit. And the kit interestingly today has had many, many changes. And now the way it sits is like this. I have a pair of tablas in front of me. I have a low sa, a low pitched tabla, which is tuned to the lower octave tonic to the right of my main tabla. With my left hand I use an instrument called the Hansonic, which is a Roland Hansonic and I endorse Roland now. This was a Japanese product which came into the market in the late 90s and I bought it then in 1999. And I also, amongst other things, I use my body as an instrument. That's something I learned from some African friends, African drummers, and they have the whole tradition of body drumming. So yes, I did that research and now I play my body and I play my cheeks and I use my tablas and my entire apparatus is a kit. So this is the product and then you peg it as, you do not peg it then in the market as something that's niche. You peg it as something that is bigger than niche, that is in the popular space and that's what I did. And luckily for me, people started accepting the, especially the youth were really interested in what I was doing and the sound and the look of it all. And yes, I was bringing to the stage a lot of a certain aggression, artistic aggression, which, you know, I was using smoke. I was using, there was a certain look and feel, some LED screens and stuff. So projections, so making a show of the whole thing. And then of course the content was very, very strong. So when people heard it and saw me and liked the way I was, my body language, the way I would express what I was playing through my expressions. So if you were playing now, you would tilt your head a bit. And I've seen a, I've seen great artists do it right from Pandit Shyamta Prasad Ji to Pandit Keshav Mahal Ji to my father Pandit Shankar Kosh to Saad Jackal Sen. So everybody had a body language and I wanted that body language to be a projection of who I was inside. And that started working and that started getting takers, so to say. And yes, I priced my show quite high in those days. And I mean, 20 years back for a tabla player to be doing a show. And at that point of time to charge a lack for that was quite steep for sponsors and other people. And I met with a lot of criticism and a lot of, what does he think? So, but I stuck to my guns, so to say. Luckily for me, Riddhamscape, the album did incredibly well, became an iconic album. And the show started getting a lot of fans and a lot of youngsters who used to come to our shows. And the fan base started building, the album started selling and yes, money started coming in and I was able to experiment further. And I was able to get more endorsements from other companies who used to, like I endorse Minel now, who sent me a shipment of 45 drums just a few months back. Which increases your ambit as a musician and as an entrepreneur. You have all these other possibilities now. So, from there, from being a fusion artist, I shifted gear to becoming a composer. And I do not know how to write Western notation. I still do not. So, if that needs to be done, like we did it for the 2015 film JAL, which me and Sonu Nagam scored for. We needed a score, we needed to submit a written score for JAL, for the Oscars. And a dear friend of mine, Devochdi Mishra, he did that for me. And lo and behold, we got an Oscar contention. So, here I was with no training in music composition, getting an Oscar contention, which is pretty much the highest kind of world scenario, you know, just two steps away from winning an Oscar. So, that really boosted my confidence. And henceforth, I did a lot of interesting work. I continue to do, right now, doing a film called Torbaz, which is a Sanjay Dutt Starrer. I do a lot of films in Bengal. I love working in Bengal because there's a sensibility to the cinema here. Even there, I was opening the ambit of what I was doing. And importantly, trying to understand the game, the market. And then, today, I speak openly about the fact that every musician who has versatility, has the ability, has the dream of working in different areas as a musician. It's not that I moved out from music, no, it's all within the ambit of music. I think we should all have a plan. We should all think holistically about our careers, not just think in a straight line. We should be able to improvise and take the career to another zone, accept new challenges. So, yes, when I was offered work with, as collaborative work, for example, you know, put somebody from another country, I would jump at it. And I've seen a lot of artists who don't do that because they want to remain in their own structure. And either they're scared to do that or they don't feel the need to do it. But if you do feel the need to do it, then you are opening up a fresh market for yourself. And the minute you start doing work, which is manifold, then you are opening up possibilities of earning more, of gaining more fame. And it all goes hand in hand. And finally, and one of the most important things is that you increase opportunities for creativity. And that is something that has been really important for me. So I've had this rather blessed life and career and I continue to do a lot of re-evaluation, a lot of work with myself, understanding more things, researching more things so that I do not become irrelevant. I've been an artist, a professional artist for over 30 years now, more actually, it's more like 35 years now, mid-80s. And I still am working on my sound, doing new things. So the whole body drumming thing that I do now is new. It just started a few, maybe five years back and I play my body and there's all kinds of things. So just to give you a demonstration, what I learned from the African friend of mine, he taught me to play my cheeks. So you can actually, you do that and you can play rhythms. And you can play tabla technique, which allows you to play really fast things on your cheek, etc. There's a lot of things that you can do if you open your mind and you allow other traditions to enter your firmament. You actually then can start doing things which are quite revolutionary, so to say. And of course, when you do things like that, you will be criticized for it. But eventually people accept when they see that what you're doing is aesthetically grounded. And that's the big game changer if it's aesthetically grounded or whether it's not aesthetically grounded. So yes, it's been a fantastic journey and I continue to enjoy the ride and more and more possibilities come my way. Like right now what I'm doing, talking to you all about entrepreneurship in music, I mean, that's a thought by itself. Very few people think of their career as an entrepreneurial journey. But if you do that, then a lot opens up, trust me. And I'm saying this particularly for the younger generations, for tabla players, for musicians. If you look inside and try to take those energies that you have inside and hone them, grind them day in and day out. As if you stick with it for long enough, study it, hone your skills. The probability that you'll get there is very high because human beings are creative people, creative energies. So I think that's something I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about how there is an entrepreneurial brain in me and that musicians can have that. And they can take that path and move on a journey where you view yourself as a product of value. And how do you extract value from that product and increase it manifold to make something bigger and bigger and bigger.