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Krishna Kant Shukla gave up his job as assistant professor of astronomy at an American college and returned to his native India to live his dream of singing bhajans (Indian devotional songs expressing love for the Divine). A distinguished lecturer with a Ph.D. in solid state physics now turned musician, his love for Varanasi, oldest living city in the world and holy city of India, and his passion for music “combine to serve as his breath for survival”. “Time stands still in Varanasi” Dr. Kant Shukla has said

and “music is in my blood,… singing makes me come alive”. His bhajan performances at various cities in India have won him accolades. He has performed at the London Mela as a distinguished guest of the Mayor of London, but of more particular interest to Baba lovers is that Krishna has sung for Meher Baba’s old disciples at Meherazad, where, according to Meherabad resident Peter Booth, his “performance was one of the most moving and powerful I have experienced in thirty years.”

More about KRISHNAKANT SHUKLA: While teaching Physics and Astronomy as an assistant professor in upstate New York, Dr. Shukla decided to quit academics and follow his heart and soul deep into the fathomless waters of Indian Classical Music. Having studied with great maestros like Srimati Laxmi Shankar, Ustaad Ali Akbar Khan, and Dr. Tapan Bhattacharya, he returned to India in 1994 to explore the roots of Indian Classical Music in the great living oral folk traditions. His musical search led him into remote villages in the Himalayan foothills, as well as far flung and difficult to reach dwellings in the central plains. He has been particularly influenced by the songs of Kabir, Gorakhnath, and other nirguna bhakti poet-saints—songs that have been sung as part of a living oral tradition that is over six hundred years old.

Dr. Shukla’s repertoire includes compositions of Tyagaraja, Tulsidas, Surdas, Meera, Tukaram, Purandardas and other poet-saints of India, as well as the musical compositions of Sufi saints. He has also been researching, recording and performing the folk songs of rural northern India, which, according to him, is an art form of unparalleled beauty which is fast becoming extinct.

Dr. Shukla has performed widely in India and has recently toured the U.S. . He has been recognized as a singer of devotional music by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, an agency of the central government that supports artists to represent India culture abroad. More details are there on the website: www.krishnakantshukla.org

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