Indian rock group Antariksh performs at a cultural event in Madagascar

Indian Bollywood rock group Antariksh performed at a cultural extravaganza in Madagascar's capital Antananarivo on October 21. The rock band received a hearty welcome from an enthusiastic audience consisting of the young Malagasy Indian community in Madagascar and top levels officers of the Malagasy government. The band played several popular Bollywood songs and received a standing ovation from the audience.

Addressing the gathering, Ambassador Abhay Kumar said that a 'Festival of India' will start soon in 2019-2020 in Madagascar which will feature a number of cultural programmes. The event was jointly organised by Indian Council of Cultural Relations and the Embassy of India in Madagascar. The island's diverse ecosystems and unique wildlife are threatened by the encroachment of the rapidly growing human population and other environmental threats.

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Madagascar has a large Indian community

Madagascar's Minister of Transport, Tourism and Meteorology, Joel Randriamandranto was the chief guest at the event. He inaugurated the event by lighting the lamp along with Kumar and leader of Antariksh group, Varun Singh Rajput. Madagascar has a large and thriving Indian community that exceeds 20,000 mostly hailing from Gujarat. Antariksh is a Hindi rock band based out of Delhi, India. 

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About the Band

The band's current line-up consists of Varun Rajput (Lead Vocals and Guitars), Joshua Peter (Vocals and Keyboards), Shrikant Biswakarma (Guitars and Vocals) and Dan Thomas (Drums). Varun Rajput and Mridul Ganesh (Former singer of the band) during their college days used to play in a local Progressive Rock band called Feedback from 2006-2008. They released their first song ‘Dheere Dheere’ in January 2013, which was appreciated by a variety of audience. This propelled the trio to record a full-length album and find a drummer and a bass player to begin playing live. Soon the hunt for a drummer and a bass player began during which they came across Vipul, through a mutual friend. Vipul Malhotra (Former drummer) was studying at NSIT at that time and was a great fit into the set-up. Finally, Varun asked his friend Raghav Verma (Former bass player) to join the team.

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(With inputs from ANI)