Ojas Adhiya

Ojas Adhiya is being recognised as one of the most promising tabla players on the music scene. His father, of course, noticed his interest in percussion when Ojas was only two, and three years later, he began learning from Mridangraj, a close family friend of late music director Kalyanji. In 1993, the child prodigy was recognised by the Limca Book of Records as the youngest tabla player in India, when he was five. Later, he was part of Kalyanji-Anandji's Little Wonders series, doing over 500 stage shows with them. Today, he has accompanied many top-notch artistes, including santoor maestro Pt Shivkumar Sharma, flautist Pt Hariprasad Chaurasia, vocalists Parveen Sultana, Ajay Pohankar and Rashid Khan, sitar maestro Rais Khan and violinist N Rajam. Besides classical musicians, he has played with ghazal artistes like Hariharan and Talat Aziz, and percussionists Vikku Vinayakram and Sivamani. One has been seeing Ojas perform on stage for quite a few years. Clearly, he is set to carry the tradition forward. –Narendra Kusnur