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Born in Durban, South
Africa.
Shashika loves
devotional music and considers it a blessing that her debut at a young
age of seven was at the Krishna Janmasthami festival in Shri Luxmi
Narayan Temple, Mobeni Heights, South Africa.
Singing comes
naturally to her and till the age of 24 she was untrained yet would sing
with ease and skill. In childhood, she performed in many local concerts
around South Africa and was also the first and only S. African to sing on
stage with the late Kishore Kumar, and the late Mahendra Kapoor. Kishoreda
labeled her as a singer ‘born in the wrong country’ and advised her father
to send her to Bombay to train and become a playback singer! He had a
vision that with training and guidance, she would be a great contribution
to the music industry. She also accompanied Pdt. Hrdayanath Mangeshkar in
concert. She has also sung with playback singers Shabbir Kumar, Sudesh
Bhosle and Abhijeet.
While studying in
primary and high school she also attended Speech and Drama classes at the
then ML Sultan Technical College and always passed with honours in her
exams through the Trinity College of Music, London and the South African
Guild of Speech and Drama Teachers’ Association.
From a young age
she felt closeness to India. Having shared the stage in South Africa with
eminent Indian music personalities from India, her desire to visit India
and be a singer grew more intense.
She enrolled for
the degree course in Hindustani Music at the Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan with
the intention of returning to South Africa to teach music. But she soon
realized the vastness of the music field and wanted to stay on to learn
more and more.
She had a three
year contract with Venus Records as a recording artist and learnt a lot
from this on the art of recording. She also accompanied Mahesh Kumar and
Party on stage hence gaining experience as a performer. While studying
music in Mumbai she pursued her Bachelor of Science degree through
University of S. Africa as well.
Shashika was also
honored in 1995 at the World Hindu Conference in South Africa for her
contribution to Indian music.
She has traveled
forty two times to twenty five countries with her music and is always in
demand for her unique presentation style. She performed for a select
audience at the United Nations and received a very overwhelming response.
She also has many successful devotional albums to her credit.
In 2003 she established URJA MUSIC, a
music company that markets her devotional albums.
She loves to experiment with different
styles and therefore on the commercial front she has thus rendered her
voice in devotional, pop, filmi, semi-classical and even techno
compositions. Last year she decided to dedicate more time to commercial
music in Mumbai and hence came her first song in Hindi cinema. She penned
and recorded a piece in Western voice for a title song by Adnan Sami for a
film titled Ek Second Jo Zindagi Badal De with music by Saawan Kumar
Saawan. Impressed by her versatile voice Saawanji then recorded her voice
for a TV serial Ek Kahani Aisi Bhi to be screened soon on DD. She has sung
playback for Gujerathi movie as well.
Gifted with a voice of devotion, she soon realized that
she had a purpose ----- to spread the message of God throughout the world
through her voice.
She met her spiritual master HH Sacinandana Swami in 1997 and
received initiation from him into the Vaisnava tradition. He also
gave her the beautiful name Sacidevi dasi, instructing her to ‘Always sing
for Krishna.’ This instruction and his further instruction to travel as
much as possible and bring many souls to Krishna through her singing
became a deep instruction in her heart.
Among her many successful music albums is Swagatam
Krishna, Sweet Chant and her latest release Gopala.
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