Gandhi, You Made Us Proud. Congratulations!

It was Wednesday evening, March 7, 2012. We were all, my family, in Hajo in a somber mood. My mother was not keeping well, suffering from liver disease. We were all sitting around her & Mamon's (my wife) phone rang. It was Shashwathi. Within no time after picking the call Mamon jumped up and shouted through her head "what .. what" & then "congratulations' and passed the phone to me.

2011 Oct @Bangalore

With an excited voice & in her own way Shashwathi passed me the news - Dhruba (Dhruba Jyoti Phukan) got National Award Rajat Kamal for Best Music Director in Panchakki.

Undoubtedly that was an amazing piece of news & that changed the mood of somber evening to delightful one. Congratulations Gandhi & very well deserved one.You made us proud! Your hard work & dedication paid itself.

I know Dhruba, later turned to Gandhi, courtesy Rabin and Trinayan, since our college days. He was my room mate in Arya Vidyapeeth College hostel. He was known as a very honest studious boy who can play little bit of tabla. He had good interest in Physics and talks in a geeky look about relativity. If you had not read & thorough in Einstein Theory of Relativity by Dr Sivanath Barman (Assamese translation) then you need to think twice what to talk to him. After 10 plus 2 he joined Assam Engineering College to study Mechanical Engineering and that's where he started focusing on music with a small Casio synthesizer. He continued å this small synthesizer for long.

After engineering he didn't took up a job even though he is a brilliant Engineer & continued his focus on music. Post engineering we, Gandhi, Trinayan, Rabin & myself, lived together for few years in Guwahati, Assam & witness his 24 hour plus hard work on creating new music. Those days in Assam it was unthinkable to live a life with music. Gandhi with his sheer dedication and ernestful love for music did that, got married to Shashwati, a singer by herself, and later both moved to Mumbai. Today, he is a well known musician - I have asked him put together his creative collections in a website - hopefully he will do that sometime.

Well done Gandhi. Continue your journey. Today you are "Music Head"! You made all of us proud.

My mother is also doing better now - may be there is little of Gandhi in that as well.

May 4, 2012 - He received the award from Vice President  Shri Hamid Ansari  yesterday.