Keeping aloft flame of Banaras Gharana
November 17, 2001

From a short stint in playback singing for a Punjabi film Mirza Sahiba to a visiting teacher in SOAS, London University, it's been a long and fulfilling journey for young vocalist Sunanda Sharma, a musical journey, which she says has no manzil.

For the uninitiated, Sunanda is a vocalist in Hindustani classical music of the Banaras Gharana and has been trained under the tutelage of Padma Bhushan Girija Devi.

For Sadhana, the journey began in Dah in Himachal at the age of five, under her father, Sudarshan Sharma.

"While my first Guru, so to speak, is my father under whom I took an initial training, it was under a traditional guru-shishya parampara for eight years under my Guru Girija Devi that I was trained in Khayal.