Swapnil Bandodkar is a well known name today in the marathi film & television world. He has made his mark as an established singer in the marathi music industry with few music albums & film songs to his credit. He became more popular after his songs ‘Radha hi bawari’, ‘Tujha rang mala de’ were released. He has also composed and sung the title song of a famous marathi serial Asambhav on Zee TV Marathi. Swapnil also anchors a show called ‘Punha Tak dhi na dhin’ on ’Me Marathi’. Well, most of us know about this. I would like to write here something which people may not know about Swapnil.

I have known Swapnil from his childhood. He is a child prodigy. At an early age of 8-9 years he has been singing songs like ‘Mana Tarapat hari darshan ko aaj’, ‘Madhuban mein radhika’, ‘Ghungroo tut gaye’ etc.  He and I studied in same school (Kendriya Vidyalaya Powai) and grew in the IIT campus. He is junior to me by 6 years. Amongst females, my sister Shubhangi use to sing and was a popular name in school and won many prizes in music competitions. Similarly, amongst males, Swapnil became the singer in demand at very early age. Like my sister, he too took an initial training in singing from our Music teacher Mrs. Kunda Vaishampayan. Its beacuase of her efforts our school got so many prizes & awards. She even won the Presidents award as the best Music Teacher across CBSE schools. I remember, the year during which we won all the three prizes in the inter-school music competition. We received gold medals in the group singing, solo singing (Swapnil) & instrumental (Tabla – that was me) category. I still have the group photograph with me. After school, Swapnil continued learning classical & light music and joined catering college in Dadar.  He had already decided to make a career in music and went through the struggle, but due to his hardwork & fate he made it finally. I still remember the days when he participated in the first session of ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’ on Zee TV. During those days, I had plans of working on a music project and had called Swapnil for rehersals. He appeared to be very serious & focused while trying to sing the songs composed by me. I decided then to sign him as a co-singer for my first music album ‘Tumse Hai Pyar’.

Swapnil is a very simple and kind person. He is very talented singer and takes music very seriuosly. I guess, the good teachings (sanskar) by his parents & his gurus has made him an artist & a great individual. Swapnil is very close to me and I wish him great success is his professional and personal life.