By Lakhram Bhagirat
It was sometime in May of 2018 and I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed and saw a colleague shared a video of a young man in a recording booth with the Golden Arrowhead proudly flying behind him. This caught my attention since the person who shared the video has great taste in music and he was hyping the singer so I decided to listen.
I opened the video and immediately recognised the beat of the song, since it is one of my favourites from the Bollywood movie “Tiger Zinda Hai”. There was no name of the singer visible, so I did not know who this person was or what to expect so about 10 seconds into the video he opened his mouth and began singing “Kacchidoriyon, doriyon, doriyon se” and I was taken aback. I thought my ears were deceiving me. It could not be. I mean this sounds almost identical to Atif Aslam’s version. I restarted the video and so did he.
I was captivated by the voice. Never had I thought that someone, other than Atif Aslam, would make me fall in love with “Dil Diyan Gallan” all over again. I listened while humming the lyrics of the song as this unknown person kept hitting all the right notes. After the video was finished, I began scrolling through the comments to see if the singer’s name was mentioned and after a few minutes of scrolling through the hundreds of comments, I came across the name Ganesh Kasinath!
Well, as one would expect, in typical Guyanese fashion, I decided to snoop around to find other music he would have put out in the public. To my surprise, the video was limited and then I was reminded that this is Guyana where there are very limited opportunities for local musicians to record and put their work out there. I was also reminded that we as a people rarely support our own musicians, since we feel that they are not up to standard or that they are copying from another musician, never mind that most of the Trinidadian artistes we listen to draw their music from popular Bollywood songs.
I reached out to Ganesh to get to know a bit more about the artiste along with the story behind his music and plans for the future. What I can say is that he is passionate about music, but a man of very few words. He prefers to have his work do the talking.
The 24-year-old is the eldest of three children and hails from the village of Chesney in Albion, Corentyne, Berbice. He said that at the age of 17, his father passed away leaving his mother alone. As the eldest child, he then took up the mantle to take care of his mother and younger siblings. He is currently employed at the GuySuCo Training Centre in Port Mourant as a Tool Store Attendant.
His day-to-day responsibilities involve managing the records, doing inventory as well as issuing the required tools as needed.
While growing up, he always loved singing and knew that he had the knack for doing it well. He notes that it was and still is a hobby for him but one he really started to pay attention to in his late teens. Coming from a Hindu household meant that Ganesh attended mandir and it was while in mandir that he would sing bhajans much to the delight of the devotees there.
He was always called upon to give his rendition of the popular bhajans and then graduated to songs. Now he enjoys making covers of popular Bollywood songs. He is more focused on the soulful melodies of composers like Vishal Dadlani, Shekar, Pritam Chakraborty, Shankar Mahadevan and AR Rahman.
“I love anything that Atif Aslam sings. I am a big fan of him and he inspired me to start singing and I did so when I was 19 years old, but only started to seriously focus in it about a year ago,” he said.
He notes that from a very small age, he wanted to be a singer but never had anyone to train him how to utilise his range as well as when to hit the right note or even how to hit the notes. He learnt everything on his own by trying to listen beyond the surface of the music. He explains that to this day he is still learning as he progresses and hopes to one day be able to record original music.
Ganesh continues to make his mark by competing in music contests as well as performing at local shows. Thus far, he has shared the stage with some of the biggest names in regional music inclusive of popular Trinidadian band Karma and local names like Bunty Singh, Pooran Seeraj and the Shakti Strings Band.
If you are a fan of classic, soothing music, then I encourage you to follow Ganesh, since, in my opinion, if afforded the right opportunities he will make his mark in music’s history. (Guyana Times Sunday Magazine)
