Voices Devdutt Pattanaik Anuja Chandramouli Shampa Dhar-Kamath Ravi Shankar Dr Deepali Bhardwaj Mata Amritanandamayi THE new sunday express MAGAZINE Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment june 21 2026 SUNDAY PAGES 12 Aarohi dalvi Sanidhya Das She became the youngest club DJ to play non-stop for over an hour at the Wings on Fire club in Mumbai, thereby entering the Guinness World Records At the age of 10 in 2024, he performed with one of the oldest Indian rock bands, Indus Creed, at the Independence Rock Festival in Mumbai The Young Sound Wave This World Music Day, we discover how disciplined parenting and social media power are shaping India’s teenage generation of professional musicians M By Wriddhaayan Bhattacharyya usic shapes civilisations. The number of young Indian prodigies trained in classical tradition with a formal education is growing. This is a novel trend considering the scale. New horizons are opening up for them to take up music as their sole profession, more open and more exciting than ever before. Independent music scenes are growing across cities, empowered by easy access to digital platforms, and audiences eager for fresh voices. Forming a band and performing on stage is no longer a fantasy As with any serious discipline, it takes will, relationships, and . resilience to sustain a career in music. Millennial parents are recognising budding talent early, and backing their children. From Bengaluru to Mizoram, these whiz kids are not just learning music; they are releasing originals, performing with legends and building a global audience. Their prowess points to a shift in Indian parenting towards talent. Megan Rakesh from Bengaluru was only nine when she shot to fame after appearing in an Instagram Live session with renowned musician Ehsaan Noorani during the Covid-19 lockdown. She gathered praise from pop icons Alicia Keys and Shania Twain for her vocal skills. Around the same time, she released the single Find My Way, produced by Grammy-nominated artistes Aaron Sarkar and Jaicko Lawrence. Now 14, she is preparing for the release of her debut EP. Her American accent—something that catches the audience’s attention immediately—is acquired, says her father and manager, Rakesh VG. “It was inevitable when you interact with global musicians and rappers. She sang in at least 1,000 online sessions before hitting the stage,” he says. Megan often performs with her rock band, Meg and the Miracles. She has also played with the iconic Parikrama, and Girish and the Chronicles. When she has free time, she reads and at other times, works on her music. “Literature is my favourite subject,” says Megan. Her mentors are international vocal coaches such as Talia Dean who is one of Brian May’s students, and Korin Deanna Lane. “I feel happiest when I perform. I believe the best form of expression is music. I read a lot of poetry . I love Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf. Music is always going to be there, irrespective of good and bad days.” The teenage singer picked up the nuances of rock music from her father, Rakesh, whose band Out of Office gave her the initial push. “When she was just a kid, she would come and perform at my gigs. It would be a surprise since people never expected a kid to scream out a Led Zeppelin number,” Rakesh says. He and his wife, Anne, run a cloud kitchen, but Megan’s schedule keeps them on their toes. “Her mother designs her clothes for the stage and also travels with her as her manager when she plays with big names,” he says. Rakesh noticed Megan’s musical productive streak during the pandemic, when school education went online. The couple prepared a home schooling syllabus. Now, Megan’s knowledge extends beyond the confines of a classroom. “We give her books and materials, not for any particular grade, but to learn every subject. She doesn’t have to go to school literally When she is close to . reaching Class X, we will enroll her for exams and follow a syllabus. As of now, she is covered for science, maths, and literature,” he says. Megan hopes to strike a chord with her new EP. “I am working on the songs and making sure every minuscule detail is perfect before I hit the studio. I have to be proud of my songs even after 50 years. The songs take shape as I keep performing with my band,” she says, adding that she is aware of the power of the spotlight. “I am grateful. I have grown up performing, and being on stage feels like home. One day, I dream of playing my own songs at the Hornbill Festival.” With 45.1K followers on Instagram, she often reviews books. “She can read a 400-page book in a day and recall it with remarkable accuracy Publishers send her books; . we have almost 1,000 of them. They reached out to us after watching some of our videos in which we discussed books,” says Rakesh. A kilometre down the road from the Rakesh household lives the 12-year-old drummer, Sanidhya Das, who has been turning heads. In 2024, after he turned 10, Sanidhya performed with one of the oldest Indian rock bands, Indus Creed, at the Independence Rock Festival in Mumbai. “He was probably the youngest drummer in the festival’s history,” says Subhashish, his father, who fed him on rock music. Sanidhya has also been a guest drummer with Parikrama and Junkyard Groove. He got the opportunity when Subhashish shared his drum covers of Indus Creed songs by Uday Benegal. “Nobody could do Indus Creed songs at this age. He played Trapped and Sleep in 2023. I sent it to Uday, and he messaged me saying they were playing in Bengaluru, and that I should bring Sanidhya to the concert. Next year, they performed in Bengaluru again, and this time, he called Sanidhya to guest in the song Fireflies. And then I-Rock happened,” he says. Sanidhya recalls the experience of playing with legends, “It was exciting, and I was living my dream. I was nervous, but the whole crowd was cheering me a lot, which felt very good. I made mistakes at the I-Rock show because I was nervous, but my father felt I was fine, since that was my first band performance ever.” When he was a toddler, Sanidhya would make drum kits with kitchen utensils. Later, videos of Casey Cooper, Matt McGuire, and Gavin Harrison helped as lessons. Like Megan, who imbibed music from her father, Sanidhya has the genes of his grandfather, who taught Hindustani Classical music. “I used to sing and play a bit of guitar during my college days, but my father played five instruments despite his government job to support the family When Sanidhya was born, an . aunt said she recognised my father’s image in him. Being a traditionalist, my father didn’t support my liking for Western music,” recalls Subhashish, who, despite the demands of his career in data science and marketing, began taking drumming lessons with his son, hoping that learning together would help his child progress faster. Subhashish and family lived in Lucknow and then Delhi before moving to Bengaluru. At that time, Sanidhya was too young to learn drums, although the father hired a local music teacher. “When we moved to Bengaluru, I realised that I would have to sit with him if he was to learn music in the proper fashion. So we applied for admission to the music school, Neptune Music Hub. Our teacher was the famous metal drummer, Karthik Jayaprakash. I understood that if I learned patterns, Turn to page 2 Megan Rakesh She was only nine when she shot to fame after appearing in an Instagram Live session with legendary musician Ehsaan Noorani during the Covid-19 lockdown