Niel and Shre, studying in the same school, St. George, were just acquaintances, two different guys without a clue that they had a string attached between them – music.
Niel was in the school choir and used to participate in most of the challenges, be it solo singing to qawali to shlok gayan, this flair took his performances out of the school as well. Apparently Shre also started playing harmonium in morning assemblies and was greatly appreciated for his great sense of music. Excited with gallons of adrenaline in the runs, his next obvious step was getting a Keyboard, very basic model of Yamaha but still very expensive for him. A prized possession, but after he realized his importance in the cultural department of the school, he gradually got the courage to bring his keyboard to school for practices.
First time Niel and Shre got to know each other was this time, practicing and jamming together for various challenges was a daily chore. Collective efforts from both of them for the jamming sessions slowly made the invisible string of music visible as they got to know each other's musical interests. Not late before they not only started approaching their music teacher for duo performances but also jammed after school whenever they could manage some time from their 8th standard syllabus. A tough thing to do when you are in a school, must say.
Qawalis of Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and ghazals of Gulam Ali were the first of some musical covers practiced in the sessions. Coming year, Niel changed his school and came to DORINS, that didn't make any difference to their frequency of jamming after school and to the ecstasy after two years even Shre joined DORINS, more time for jamming sessions.
Patty, with his first acoustic Guitar started learning the basics. Soon he was could wave through most of the strumming and cord patterns. Rock fascinated him, like it does to many, swinging solos of Kirk Hammet and Slash was the music that would ring in his ears, not surprisingly his next grocery was an Aria Electric Guitar. Three of them used to meet often but they never made a plan for jamming together.
Shre and his knack of music made him buy a used drum kit and started drumming as well, he has always been exceptional musician who would just spend a couple of days with an instrument before he would play it pretty well the next day.
Later half of 2008, with the arrival Durga puja, the three musketeers practiced with common friends for a couple of shows. With Shre on the keyboard the band was named mantra. After Durga puja, Niel, Shre and Patty decided to form a band of their own in which Shre would be on the drums, Neil on the vocals and Patty with the six strings. With a suggestion from Niel's Father for the band name, BRAMHANAAD came into existence. It was important to understand the meaning of the name and how it suited the common musical approach of the band, he did enough to make three of them get to the core of the meaning.
Niel's uncle had a band way back in 85 with the band's name Sonata, their bands bass Guitar now didn’t have much of fingers on the fretboard at a friends place who now used to teach tabla to Niel's younger brother. That friend of Niel's uncle got to know about his band and asked Neil to use it for his band. Niel, a big fan of Rahul Ram from the Indian Ocean and his style of playing the bass Guitar couldn't resist the offer.
Niel agreed and got it home, but there was a lot of repairing to be done. Till then Niel would learn few basics of bass notes from Patty on his electric Guitar. The bass guitar was back from repairing soon and these guys jammed with their heart and soul every weekend.
One afternoon, Niel's uncle called him up, the same uncle who had a band and generally asked Niel that how good are Yamaha basses, Niel with his gut feel that he might be thinking to buy one moreover his uncle already had three Guitars so it wasn't that surprising.
Niel told him that it is a nice bass but not to buy it at that time. Oblivious Neil had a grand surprise, a Yamaha four stringed, metallic red bass Guitar was already bought for Niel as his birthday gift.
The missing link was an Indian percussionist, Neil, patty, and Shreh had a common friend in school called Sarthak aka Sattu, he was a brilliant science student and he used to play Tabla quite well, he used to play Tabla with Niel and Shreh in qawali competitions five- six years back but was not in conatact with them for a long time, so they contacted Sattu to know if he was playing for a band or not, and there was the good news they got.
The moment he mentioned he wasn't in a band, Niel asked him to join BRAMHANAAD and he agreed. Sarthak was humble, suggestive and appreciative to them. With the confluence of Indian classical which Neil and Sattu brought in and rock which Patty and Shreh brought, every weekend rocked.
That was just it, a perfect sangam in the sound of BRAMHANAAD.
