When all her friends were playing, she would be engrossed in her practices. Her guru and father Shri Jayanta Bandopadhyay, who himself was a disciple of Classical maestro Pt. Chinmay Lahiri, and Rabindra Sangeet ‘Guru’ Deshikottam Shri Shailajaranjan Mazumdar, was the first person to hold her hands in the mystic world of classical singing. Sutapa Sarkar Bandapadhyay, a classical singer and Rabindra Sangeet exponent shares her experience of womanhood and being a singer.
She was just six years when her ‘talim’ began under her father’s guidance and she started taking Rabindra sangeet lessons and got recognised with the Prestigious ‘Nehru Talent Search Award’ being first, in the year 1986, at the age of twelve. It was her turning point as to be said so for she started her performances in almost all the Kolkata Maidan Melas, and her songs echoed in all the auditoriums in Kolkata. She also performed continuously four times at the Tagore Birth Centenaries held at the Rabindra Sadan Kolkata. This program gave her the exposure where she was appreciated by the legend of Rabindra sangeet Late Suchitra Mitra. Moreover, she remained the hot cake of discussion in the town when popular magazines then published her performances recognising her immense talent.
Fame and recognition were not brought to her rather she had to earn it through hard work as she further got trained on Rabindrasangeet at the prestigious ‘Dakshinee’ under the valuable guidance of Shri Sudeb Guhathakurata, since 1998. Not only that way she was doing shows successfully but she also started teaching the students at ‘Srijan’ since 2007, a music school spread across four locations in Mumbai which is affiliated by ‘Dakshinee’.
The much-talented singer does not only sing musically but also help other musicians through the trust ‘Gandhar’, formed by Late Jayanta Bandapadhyay which was revived to support the artists of the yesteryears who need financial support to survive. Under this trust, various programs had been organized like ‘Rabichaya’ in 2012 to support Smt. Jayasri Sen; ‘Geentanjali’ in 2014 to support Shri Chapal Bhaduri and Shri Ramen Roy Choudhury. Artists like Srabani Sen, Soumitra Chattopadhyay, Saheb Chatterjee, Dr. Soma Ghoshal, Rajat Kapoor and Rituparna Sengupta had been actively into the programs to help the cause grow and reach many people at the same time.
While talking about her soft heart and sweet voice, she is exuberant in taking a stand against the piracy of music. Admitting the helplessness of the system, Sutapa Sarkar Bandapadhyay says,
“I wish the society stands up against piracy strongly as this makes the survival of the musicians all the more difficult. There should be more strict copyright implementation and more facility of getting royalty to create a space for more music professionals, which otherwise has been less explored due to the lack of financial security.”
A cheerful and musical soul, after carving a niche in Mumbai, is all set to freeze her foot in Kolkata. Though she is a frequent traveler to the city of joy she wishes to be in the music industry in Kolkata as much as she is in Mumbai. She has few of her albums to her credit ‘Ananda Basanta Samagame’, ‘The Other Side’, and ‘Byakul Badal Majhe’.
