Some careers in Indian independent music begin with a record deal. Raghu Dixit's began with a dare. A Bharatanatyam-trained student in Mysore was mocked by a guitar-carrying classmate, bet him he could learn the instrument and a rock song in two months, and won. In the years that followed, the Raghu Dixit Project sold its debut album at its own gigs, topped a UK world-music chart, played Glastonbury twice and helped turn a lungi and ghungroos into one of the most recognisable stage looks in the country. On Spotify's Rock in India playlist today, "Hey Bhagwan", the song that introduced him to India in 2008, sits at No. 96. This is the story of how a folk-rock troubadour from Mysore built a global audience without ever pretending to be from anywhere else.

Raghu Dixit at a glance

  • Born: 11 November 1974; raised in Mysore, Karnataka; now Bengaluru-based
  • Band: The Raghu Dixit Project, set up in 2007 as an open-ended collaboration (Forbes India, 2011)
  • Sound: multilingual folk-rock in Kannada, Hindi and Tamil, drawing on Kannada poetry and Indian folk traditions
  • Debut album: released in India in 2008 on Vishal and Shekhar's new label; listed on Apple Music as Antaragni - The Fire Within
  • Albums since: Jag Changa (2013) and Shakkar (2024, ℗ Raghu Dixit Music)
  • Rock in India: "Hey Bhagwan" at No. 96 (checked 14 October 2026, about 10:00 AM IST)
  • Milestones: Songlines Best Newcomer (2011), Later... with Jools Holland (2010), Glastonbury in 2011 and 2015

From Bharatanatyam to a guitar bet

Raghu Dixit trained in Bharatanatyam for 17 years, Forbes India reported in 2011, after his father noticed him mimicking a cousin's steps. Rolling Stone India's 2011 cover profile tells the rest: a long-haired college classmate taunted him that dance was effeminate and the guitar was "how you feel like a man". Dixit gave himself two months. "In that two months I learnt four chords and a song, and realised the amazing joy in sucking in thin air and putting it out there again in a song," he told the magazine.

Music did not replace the plan his family expected. He topped his year in microbiology at Mysore University, taught in Bengaluru and moved to Belgium for a better salary. There, his landlord heard him sing and took his CD to a radio station; the flood of positive e-mails after that radio spot sent him home with a guitar and a new question: "How can I be a rock star?" Scroll.in dates his return to India to 2000.

His first band, Antaragni, formed in college with violinist H.N. Bhaskar, beat 43 bands at a National Law School fest in Bengaluru and split over creative differences in 2004. Dixit was writing in English at first, but, as he told Forbes India, "I sang with more conviction in Kannada and Hindi." That instinct would define everything that followed.

The Zenzi gig and the Vishal-Shekhar label

The middle of the 2000s was the hard stretch. "I approached different record labels, kept getting rejected for not being commercial enough," he told Scroll.in. In 2006, a major-label executive in Mumbai told him he was not good-looking enough for a music video. He was ready to go back to Mysore when filmmaker Shashanka Ghosh booked him a solo set at Zenzi in Bandra, meant as his last Mumbai show.

"At the venue, in the beginning, there were just four people and they were all my friends," Dixit recalled. "By the end, there were 200." Vishal Dadlani was in the room. The next day Dixit played for Dadlani and Shekhar Ravjiani at their studio, and in the middle of the third song they offered to sign him to the record label they were launching. "We decided to start a record label just to put his music out," Dadlani told Rolling Stone India.

The band came together on gut feeling. Dixit spotted bassist Gaurav Vaz tuning up at a coffee shop and asked him to join; by 2011 the line-up named by Forbes India was Vaz, lead guitarist Vijay Joseph, violinist Karthick Iyer and drummer Wilfred Demoz. Dixit wanted a loose collective rather than a band he had to police, a lesson learned from Antaragni and a model worth setting beside our look at how independent bands build their sound.

Hey Bhagwan and a debut sold at the merch table

The self-titled debut, released in 2008, carried "Mysore Se Aayi", "Ambar", "Khidki", "Gudugudiya Sedi Nodo" and the lead single "Hey Bhagwan". Its writing was a quiet act of collaboration: "Gudugudiya Sedi Nodo" and "Soruthihudu Maneya Maligi" reinterpret the verse of the 19th-century Kannada poet-saint Shishunala Sharif, while Neeraj Rajawat wrote "Ambar" and "Khidki" and Aditya Dhar wrote "Hey Bhagwan", according to Forbes India. Scroll.in credits "Hey Bhagwan" and its video with catapulting Dixit and his band "to fame overnight", and with fixing the lungi-wearing rock-star image in the public eye.

The release itself was a lesson in what our piece on releasing music without a record label calls owning the relationship with the listener. The new label had no distribution network, Dixit told Rolling Stone India, and the album did not reach stores for three months. So the band sold it at gigs and gave away a free two-song CD of "Mysore Se Ayi" and "Ambar", an idea from then-manager Vijay Nair. "We sold about 20,000 CDs in two years," he said. Rolling Stone India reported it became India's best-selling independent release of 2009.

On streaming services the debut now appears as Antaragni - The Fire Within, an eight-track album opening with "Hey Bhagwan". Spotify dates the version on Rock in India to 2010, the year the record went international.

How the Raghu Dixit Project went global

Unlike Indian Ocean, whom Forbes India described as working the home circuit for years before looking abroad, Dixit aimed at the UK almost immediately. Lovebox in 2009 led to a slot at WOMAD; a showcase at a Gibson showroom in London brought in co-managers Paul Knowles and Robert Horsfall. The cost was real. "Last year we spent about Rs 39 lakhs and earned back about Rs 11 lakhs," he told Rolling Stone India in 2011.

It paid back in recognition. UK world-music label Wrasse Records released the debut in September 2010. In late 2010 the band played "No Man Will Ever Love You, Like I Do" on the BBC's Later... with Jools Holland on a bill that included Robert Plant, after which the album topped the UK iTunes world-music chart, Rolling Stone India reported. In 2011 Dixit won Best Newcomer at the Songlines Music Awards. Scroll.in records two Glastonbury appearances, on the John Peel Stage in 2011 and the West Holts Stage in 2015, and a 2012 performance for Queen Elizabeth II.

Jag Changa, film work and the long silence

The second album, Jag Changa, followed on 23 November 2013, with songs including "Parasiva", "Lokada Kaalaji", "Amma" and the title track. Then came a decade dominated by film. Dixit's first soundtrack was the Kannada film Psycho in 2008; Hindi work followed with Quick Gun Murugun, Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge, Bewakoofiyaan and Chef, and Kannada scores continued through Orchestra, Mysuru! in 2023.

He has been candid about the trade-off. "I feel I wasted time in Bollywood and Kannada films, which led to a 10-year gap between my previous independent album and the upcoming one in July," he told The Indian Express in 2024, adding that he had stopped doing film music in the previous four to five years.

Shakkar: songs about staying alive

Shakkar, released on 6 July 2024, was born in the darkest period of his life. "Every night, I'd go to bed hoping I wouldn't wake up," he told The Hindu. A Kolkata musician, John Paul, kept sending him demos until Dixit invited him to his studio; in 15 to 20 days they wrote more than 45 tunes, eight of which became the album. "It slowly lifted me out of that dark place," Dixit said.

The record is his most ambitious: each song exists in Kannada, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, and the lead single "Shakkarpari" features banjo player Béla Fleck. Apple Music credits Rajhesh Vaidhya, Purbayan Chatterjee, Michael League and Casey Driessen across the tracklist. Rolling Stone India reported a 12-show launch tour from London's O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire on 6 July to the Cambridge Folk Festival on 28 July. A June 2026 Apple Music listing of Jag Changa carries his own Raghu Dixit Music imprint.

Why Raghu Dixit matters to Indian independent rock

Rock in India is a list of loud guitars, from Parikrama to the metal bands further down. "Hey Bhagwan" is there for a different reason. Dixit proved that an Indian independent act could sing in Kannada and Hindi, borrow from a 19th-century poet-saint, dress like the South Indian he is and still fill festival tents abroad. That idea runs through the regional rock bands of the past decade and fellow Bengaluru folk-rockers like Swarathma. His own words to Scroll.in sum up the mission: "I want them to go back home with a positive frame of mind."

For more on how the playlist itself took shape, read our history of Rock in India and the DIY roots of Indian rock.

FAQ

Who is Raghu Dixit?

Raghu Dixit is a Mysore-raised, Bengaluru-based singer, songwriter and composer, born on 11 November 1974, who fronts the multilingual folk-rock band The Raghu Dixit Project and has scored Kannada and Hindi films.

What is the Raghu Dixit Project?

It is the band Dixit set up in 2007 as a loose collective. It sings mainly in Kannada, Hindi and Tamil and blends Indian folk traditions with rock and global influences.

What is Raghu Dixit's most famous song?

"Hey Bhagwan", the lead single from his 2008 debut, is the song Scroll.in credits with making him famous overnight. "Mysore Se Aayi", "Ambar" and "Gudugudiya Sedi Nodo" are also fan favourites.

Who wrote Hey Bhagwan?

Forbes India reported that Aditya Dhar wrote the lyrics of "Hey Bhagwan", with Raghu Dixit composing and singing it.

What albums has Raghu Dixit released?

His independent albums are the 2008 debut (listed on Apple Music as Antaragni - The Fire Within), Jag Changa (2013) and Shakkar (2024), plus the live sets Unplugged (Live in York) and Courtyard Jam Sessions.

Has Raghu Dixit played Glastonbury?

Yes. Scroll.in reported that his band played Glastonbury in 2011 on the John Peel Stage and again in 2015 on the West Holts Stage.

Is Raghu Dixit on the Rock in India playlist?

Yes. "Hey Bhagwan" was at No. 96 on Spotify's Rock in India playlist when checked on 14 October 2026.

Sources

Cover: Raghu Dixit on stage at Shrewsbury Folk Festival, 29 August 2016. Photo by GrubbyPix via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped and resized to 1200×630; metadata stripped. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shrewsbury_2016_-_Raghu_Dixit_5.jpg.