Krsna Kirtana Songs
est. 2001 www.kksongs.org
Hari Bol! Amar Nam Krsna Dhenu!
I was born (birth
name: Nishant Thakar) on March 22, 1984 at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. I was born
in a U.S. Army base, as my father was in the army then. From 1984 until 1987, I
was at Heidelberg, Germany where I received my mundana
samskara by Krsna Ksetra Prabhu with the
association Sacinandana Swami and Navina
Nirada Prabhu. Later that
year, I moved to Spring Lake, NC until 1987 where I moved to Fort Bragg, NC. I
spent a majority of my childhood there. I lived at Fort Bragg until 1995 when I
moved to West Point, NY. I spent a great portion of my teenage life at West
Point, NY. By the Lord's grace, in April 17, 1997, I had been on an excursion
to Manhattan SONY Wonder Museum. During lunch break, I had the great fortune to
meet the devotees of Lord Sri Krsna! It was a little
difficult to get adjusted to Krsna Conscious living
but in 1999, I was getting better. I met my first devotee friends via the
Internet in 1999 and I had learned a great deal since the day I met devotees. My
first real temple experience was at the New Navadvipa
Temple at Towaco, NJ. Through the devotees, I learned the literature of Krsna Consciousness, although the arts, specifically the
music, of Krsna Consciousness of attracted me the
most.
I
had some good times and couple flaws here and there, but by the Lord’s mercy,
He prevented me from crashing. I graduated James I O'Neill High School in June
2001 with High Honors, in addition to winning the United States Military
Academy Award of Achievement in Mathematics. The most rewarding moment in high
school was when I graduated. When I received my diploma in front of many
family, friends, and their families, I heard a nice cheer of “Hari Bol!”
In August 2001, I started my formal collegiate education at the State
University of New York at Buffalo as a computer engineer major. It was during
my first semester of my freshmen year where an idea to create a website that
centralizes the devotional songs into one place. This site eventually grew as
time progressed. As far as my academics were concerned, I changed majors from
computers (due to economy and proficiency issues) to pharmacy.
Because
of lack of experience and other factors, I turned down pharmacy temporarily and
transferred out of University at Buffalo on May 2004. I began my start of my
pharmacy career by working at Walgreen’s as a pharmacy technician in June 2004.
I finished a B.A. degree from National Louis University in September
Apart
from my academic side, I also sing Hindustani classical vocal forms and Bengali
Vaishnava bhajans. I play
the tabla, pakhawaj, khol, esraj, harmonium,
keyboards, kartals, sitar, tanpura,
khomok, guitar-vina, and
some sarod. I have taught three semesters of khol, one semester of tabla, and
one semester of harmonium. In addition, I have done a few presentations at
local schools regarding North Indian music and Indian culture.
In
addition, I also do a lot of compositions using Swarshala
for classical and fusion projects. Other web projects accomplished besides KKSongs include Krsna Calculus
and a small collection of recipes I used to include on my old webpage.
As
of now (July 29, 2009), I have completed one year of pharmacy school. I am a pharmacy
intern for Walgreen’s. I spend three months of the year at Burlington, NC,
while the other nine months are spent at Hanover Park, IL. Upon graduation in
2012, I plan on moving to Hillsborough, NC.
When
I am not working, studying, performing, or working on the site, I love to make
friends and keeping in touch with them. J
Please
feel free to e-mail me using the Contact KKSongs.org link on the site.
Hare Krishna!
Krsna Dhenu
UPDATED: July 29, 2009