Firstly, I must start this with a round of thanks to Tasneem Vahanvaty, the co-ordinator of the awards for India and so much more at the British Council, India! She forced me to put in my application last year and was there to answer any queries I might have had along the way! And while I am at it, Claire De Brackeleer for all the help provided in the UK! It would never have been possible without either of you!

The application form itself is quite a questionnaire and they have smartly left the questions very non-specific to a particular project that you might have worked on. This means that you have a LOT of introspection to do and you get to pitch yourself for the award. It took me about a week to just fill up that form and get all my references in place, but I was glad I put that time in for it because ultimately when I had to make my presentation, it was all just a breeze!

London was a once in a lifetime adventure for me! It was the first time I had travelled out of the country by myself and there was just SO MUCH to do that I feared I would not want to come back at the end of it The British Council had taken the most excellent care of us and much to the surprise of EVERYONE I know, the finalists were put up in the Leceister Square area of London, the most central, most vibrant place in London!

Our schedule was packed with meetings with various different people from the music industry in London who gave me a whole new perspective to the entire music business. Like I realized after discussions with them, what we see in India today with regard to the Indie music business is what the scene was in London about 20 or so years back! And also, with technology and opportunity becoming more and more widespread, the gap can be closed very quickly!

All the finalists got to head to Liverpool and Manchester for a different perspective from the people who run their businesses from there. But the underlying thread that we saw in all conversations was how people from every single domain in the music business take thier work so seriously and how there is value attached to every little bit of work that goes in! Something that has to start and grow in India.

Many of the friends I made in London and in the trip across the UK, have been very helpful to me over the course of the year when I sucessfully shaped my career in the music businessand the few partnerships that have formed and are forming show a LOT of promise! Infact, if I was to sum up the whole experience of the Young Music Entrepreneur award in one word, it would be ‘PROMISE’. And I would like to thank everyone from the British Council for doing their bit in showing us that promise!

Go over and read my “Thank You” list for everyone who has helped me win this award. And if you are doing something interesting in music in India today, then please head to the British Council Website and get the forms and apply at once! Its well worth your time

http://www.britishcouncil.org/india-arts-yme-award.htm is the link you want to head to now!

The new year was brought in just the way I like it! I went for midnight mass with the family and then headed to spend time with Shilpa. We even made pizza ourselves! I like this over the partying and the madness! And the rest of the year was going to get crazy anyway .. and it did

It was by complete accident that I started taking photographs at weddings. I carry my camera around with me all the time and when I first took some photos at my friend’s wedding, it was because I wanted to keep myself occupied! Some of the couple’s friends had made a movie about their life together and wanted to show it at the reception and since I had both my camera and my mac with me, I took a couple of hundred photos (like I do always), transferred them to my mac and ran a slideshow on the projector that was set up for the movie! This became such a great hit because a typical wedding photographer would take a month after the wedding for you to see the photos even and here guests who came in a little later could see what had happened earlier in the reception!

I started getting offers to shoot weddings which I still don’t take up for money. I am just not good enough yet and am still doing this as a hobby and for only my close friends. But then, sometime later this year, I should possibly start charging for it

Much to my liking, a LOT of music happened this year, with the new project (tentatively named – Allegro Fudge) that is making some very interesting music, to playing with old friends at Opus and other places around the city to the lovely ‘Raghu Dixit Project‘, its been a time when I grew a lot as a musician and I hope that will continue right through.

February 26th, 2008 was when The Raghu Dixit Project’s debut album was launched and from there its been a crazy ride with the band this year. From being MTV’s artist of the month, to seeing our album for sale in stores, to playing all over the country and some parts of the world, being part of the Roots Music Festival tour of the North East of India, to travelling around 5 countries in South Asia, to being part of a superhit movie score, my journey in music with Raghu has been tremendous this year! And I only hope next year will top it and will see me get better with the bass guitar!

This is my favourite picture of the band on stage taken this year. This was taken by Sayan ‘The Red Bantoo’ Datta, who is one of the best concert photographers I have met in the country!

The trip to the North East of India that I went on with the band, was more than just the music for me. It was a great lesson in management and I learnt more on that one trip about how to organize concerts, negotiate with people, delegate work, get work done, and just manage things than I have learnt in the past 25 years of my life! From the accident to having to set up promotional deals with radio stations in the North East and making sure things were on track in a place I have never been to in my life, in a language I don’t understand was quite an experience!

It was on this trip that I spoke extensively with Vijay Nair about the various things that we can in the realm of Indie music in India. Many of those ideas are being brought to fruition as we speak . This was also the trip that fuelled my leaving IT and eventually landing up where I am today. We’ll come to that in a bit.

2008 was the year that I was finally able to do music and work in the music biz a little more seriously and a large part of that was because of winning the IYME award for India. That was one of the best experiences I’ve had all year. I got to go to London, Liverpool and Manchester and see how the music industry works there and make friends and contacts that will be invaluable to me as I continue on this path in the music biz.

2008 was in many ways, the year for travel! Most of this was not purely travel, but I did get to see a LOT of the world and I am thankful for it. I will seriously invest time and money in travel over next year and the years to come. Its just the best thing in the world I should tell you! I used to be this person who completely disliked travelling on IT work because you are going to be stuck in an office in another country like you are now and it will only be a change of location. But I strongly urge you to travel when you can and do it NOW! go to as many places and see the world .. there is a lot you will learn

2008 was the year I finally quit IT! to pursue a life and career in the music industry and as a great first step, a series of co-incidences and great timing made me the VP for MuckWork and getting to work with Derek Sivers can be a great start to a career in the Music Biz and I can’t tell you how thrilled I am for it. More updates on how everything progresses will be made as things happen. But I am finally doing what I LOVE from my heart and its a great place to be and I am determined to make this count

There are a lot of interesting projects I am part of in the Indie Music scene in India and I will tell you about them as they happen. Right now its all just concepts but they will come together soon.

The project that started it all was relaunched late this year and I am really proud of what we have got here. The brand new RadioVeRVe now has more music and a LOT more features. I strongly recommend that you check it out and tell me what you think about it. This is just the start for the new RadioVeRVe. There is more that will go there and it will happen soon!

Another great project that I was part of late this year was FOSS.in. It was haphazard to start with, ambitious when it came close and finally when it happened, it was grand! there is a lot we did right this year, a LOT we didn’t and we learnt with everything that din’t go as planned. The team ‘bash’ after the event was quite an event and I hope that it makes us strong as a team together because there is a LOT of good that will happen with the event next year

Finally, Shilpa and I have been together for almost 5 years now and I could not have been happier about it! this has been the year when we grew a LOT closer to each other. When it was smooth sailing almost all year long The year when we started respecting our own space and learning or rather getting used to each one doing our own thing and not having to be around each other all the time. In many ways, that has been the secret to how close we’ve become.

This was also a year when I reconnected with a lot of old friends, made new ones, started many new projects and got qutie a bit of work done and enjoyed every moment of it. In a tremendous number of ways, this has been the best year of my life yet and I see a lot of good happening in 2009 as well. There have been many things I have forgotten to mention and I am sure they will come back to me soon and I’ll probably make new posts about it!

For now, cheers to a great year and here’s another one hoping for an even better year ahead

After the North East trip, I have come out a much stronger person and I must say my resolve to do something on my own has strengthened and I am determined to do something about it.

I am in Bombay this week, talking at the ‘Palm Expo’ and also as part of the Onstage Foundation! More about that later .. and there is a LOT more to come about that

Next week I travel to London for the finals of the International Young Music Entrepreneur award and that will be a whole new experience.

I am just making a note of things I should write about in detail and I will!

For now wish me luck .. on all fronts

On other fronts, the British Council finally announced the award last week. Check it out! I am supposed to meet with them next week for some discussions and some interesting projects both of us have in mind

RadioVeRVe looks dormant to the world but there has never been so much action happening in the background as it is now … and the fruits of it will be seen very very soon! Don’t lose the faith yet

On the music front, the band is taking a well deserved break before we launch into tour mode again by the end of this month and from then on its going to be madness!!

So this phase of my life can be called ‘the calm before the storm’!

I won the India leg of this event yesterday and the magnitude of this is still sinking in slowly! As winner, I get to travel to the UK in June and attend ‘London Calling‘ one of the biggest trade conferences for the global music industry. I also get to add one song from my country into the global IYME compilation. My choice for this is of course going to be ‘Gudugidya’, my favourite song from the Raghu Dixit Project album and one of the songs that I played for on the album.

Since I could not do a formal ‘Thank you’ acceptance speech yesterday while receiving the award, I’d like to take that liberty here!

Thank you Shreyas and Atul for RadioVeRVe! This is as much your award as it is mine … Working for RadioVeRVe has been one of the most wonderful things I have done in my life though I haven’t given it the time it deserves recently!

Thanks Shilpa for not letting me give up and for believing and eventually joining in the initiative! I love the fact that we can stay strong together doing all that we love!

Thanks Vijay and Bobby from OML firstly for letting me know about this award and for the beautiful relationship we are working towards (okay that does sound slightly wrong!). Also, Neysa and the entire gang at OML for blindly helping us out with all that we asked for!

Thanks Raghu! playing with you has done more for RadioVeRVe than anything else in the recent past! If every band we featured promoted us like you do .. things would be very different!

A big thanks to my family and my extended family! Mom, Dad, Geeth, Sheila – At times, I’m sure you never understood, but supported whole heartedly nevertheless!

A HUGE thanks to everyone who makes original music in India! you guys deserve much more than you guys are getting and its time we did that!

To all my friends from college and colleagues at work for helping us in their own little way and for bearing with the unlimited gyan that I keep spewing!

I could go on .. but I guess I make my point … I just went up there and made the presentation, the work was done by many with me and this is for all of us!

Lets hope we go on to win the International award! that will be the longer speech!