Before ‘Maskara’ introduced her voice to a wider film audience, Nilanjana Ghosh Dastidar had already spent years performing alongside A.R. Rahman, usually with a bass guitar slung across her shoulder. As a member of his touring band, she has travelled across India and internationally, balancing her role as an instrumentalist with occasional vocal performances. Her journey into playback singing, however, began long before that opportunity arrived.
Growing up in Bandel, West Bengal, Dastidar was surrounded by music. Her mother, a Rabindra Sangeet practitioner, and her father, Sandipan Ghosh Dastidar, a bassist, introduced her to different musical traditions. She began training in Hindustani classical music, while growing up listening to Rabindra Sangeet, Nazrul Geeti, Bengali bands and Western music. Singing was her first pursuit, but the bass guitar gradually became an equally important part of her musical identity.
Introduced to the instrument by her father, she began learning bass in 2017, at the age of 21. In 2020, a video of her playing a section of ‘Sea of Lies’ by American progressive metal band Symphony X, dressed in a traditional Bengali laal-paar saree, caught widespread attention online. The combination became a recognisable part of her public identity, bringing visibility to a woman instrumentalist performing a genre and playing an instrument more commonly associated with male musicians.
