Lavni, Natya Pad, Old bollywood songs or the latest ones, all sound resounding when she sings. She started to sing from the age of 6 and now is mostly on tours outside India. We happened to meet Sangeeta Jayant Kulkarni (Bandekar).
Sangeeta was born and brought up in Belagavi and she did her schooling from Cantonment Board school where her father was school teacher as well. Later she completed SSLC in Mahila Vidyalaya and she has a Bachelors degree in Arts from RPD college Belagavi.
She had her first lessons in Classical music from her father Late Shri Nagesh Bandekar, Radio star and music composer. He was the pioneer who recognized her talent and taught her the basic lessons of music and singing. Sangeeta has acted in numerous Musial dramas like Sangeet Soubhadra, Sangeet sanshay Kallol , sangeet Bhramacha Bhopla and she won the best singer and actress award thrice in row at Delhi.
She is currently doing stage shows in Marathi, Hindi, Gujrati and she has shared the stage with noted stage artists such as Sudesh Bhosle, Usha Uthhup, Shabbir Kumar, Anup Jalota, Anuradha Poudwal, Muhammad Aziz to name a few. She has some hundreds of devotional songs recorded by her and now she has recorded for a few Commercial Marathi movies as well.
Speaking to AAB, Sangeeta said, “I am here only because of my father, he was the one who had the confidence in me and pushed me into the music field. I still remember my first performance at the age of 6 which was my school gathering.”
When AAB asked her how was the support from the family after marriage? She replied, “I am very thankful to have married Jayant, who always supported me and encouraged me to continue my singing career. My son also supports me a lot and now he is Canada and also a good choreographer.”
“Now there is a huge scope and chance for upcoming artists with the advent of Reality TV shows and even different types of academies. Where they can learn and groom themselves. We did not have such opportunities then. But may what it be but if you dont work with a passion and devotion you wont be successful.”
She is now a Punkear due to her profession but always has Belagavi in her heart. Her all time favorites in music include Asha Bhosle, RD Burman, A R Rahman, Madan Mohan and Khayyam.
AAB asked her about her upcoming projects – “Two Marathi movies in which she has given the playback would release in March namely Bazar and Wah Pailwan. And she would be traveling to London for one month. Then Holland for a week and then Navratri in Canada and also South Africa is on the map this year.”
Good going Attya..!