Background
Sreyash was born in Calcutta, India, to prominent physicist professor Samir Kr. Sarkar and Pushpita Sarkar, a professor of Political Science at Bangabasi College. He grew up in Calcutta, attended South Point School and was brought up in a family of noted academics, musicians, diplomats, educationists and politicians. Among his uncles, is the noted scientist Dr. Sisir Kumar Sarkar, whose contributions to photophysics and chemical dynamics is well documented. His other uncle is Prof. Salil Kumar Sarkar, who being a solid state physicist inspired early ramblings in the area for Sreyash. His maternal great-grand-aunt is the social activist, educationist, minister at the Indira Gandhi cabinet and one of India's early feminists, Dr. Phulrenu Guha. His interest and ideas of social justice, communist ideologies, rehabilitation programmes for the displaced and the destitute, took its inspiration from seeing his great-grand-aunt's work at close hand. His introduction and foray into music happened organically having been born in an atmosphere of constant, furiously inspiring music. Sreyash's maternal great-grandfather, Dr. Ramesh Chandra De, an army doctor who served in the Second World War, could play 20 Indian Classical instruments and his sarod is displayed at Benares's Ramnagar Museum as an antiquated piece of musical history. His maternal grandfather, Dr. Sudhir Chandra De, also a doctor, was an eminent musicologist, arranger of musical conferences in Calcutta(Kolkata). His maternal grand-aunt is the eminent Hindustani Classical vocalist and the first Andhra woman to sing Hindustani Music, Vidushi Sumitra Guha. The underlying passion and distinctive musical taste of a prolific family of public performers is what shaped Sreyash's holistic understanding of music in his early years. Eventually, his mother gave him his first musical lessons, and he later studied Hindustani Classical Music in the Kirana and Gwalior gharanas under Bidhan Chakrabarty, Rajyasree Ghosh, Sandip Ghosh, a pupil of Pt. A. Kanan, and Pt. Keerti Kumar Badsheshi, a disciple of Pt. Vinayak Torvi. He took his first lessons in Rabindrasangeet from his mother too, who in turn was trained by the likes of Swapna Ghoshal, Krishna Guhathakurta and Suchitra Mitra. While studying for his engineering degree in Bangalore, Sreyash briefly undertook training in Carnatic Classical(traditional music of the southern part of India). From 2010 onwards, Sreyash ventured into Western Classical music and in classical cross-over compositions, which laid its foundation in his 2017 single, 'July' and his 2018 album, 'Simple Songs', where his sense of atmospheric music revealed itself. Amongst his most famous collaborations is with Valentina Igoshina in pieces reimagining Chopin and Bach. Sreyash's cousin-in-law is the American cellist, Dale Henderson, founder of Bach in the Subways. From his school days on, he was a student correspondent for Voices, The Statesman's literary supplement in Calcutta, India. He started writing in English and Bengali for several magazines in Kolkata, including the seminal Bengali magazine, Desh. In 2011, his collection Aspects — a Tagorean Venture won first place in an all-India competition organized by the Jagabandhu Institution in Kolkata and Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan. The next year, his poem named The Optical Symphony was shortlisted among 40 entries globally in an international poetry competition sponsored by the Atlanta (US)-based W.B. Yeats Foundation. Having relocated to Bangalore, India, Sreyash focused more on writing in English and by 2013, he was shortlisted for the reputed Yeats Prize. Sense of Elsewhere, a Vancouver (Canada)-based magazine acclaimed him ‘poet of the month’ for his contributory compendium Letters from Bangalore. Since then, Sreyash has been a contributor to several magazines and serves as an editor, art expert and editorial associate to various international magazines. His move to Paris, France provided and opened horizons for him both in terms of artistic rejuvenation and in finding a distinctly personal and at the same time a fiercely political voice in his poetry. His long association with Inks of Tomorrow magazine, commissioned the work, 'Pari- A Painting', which refurbishes ideas of immigration, identity and aloneness in a globalised world of borders and boundaries. His paintings have been displayed in several arthouses, galleries and art shows. The latest of his works, 'Roots' was part of Chicago based Awakenings Art Gallery's 'Bloom' exhibit. Sreyash currently divides his time between Kolkata, Paris and Lyon- the latter being where he is currently a researcher in Applied Physics.