Mandar Agashe

Mandar Agashe

Mandar Agashe
Born (1969-05-24) 24 May 1969
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Residence Pune, Maharashtra, India
Occupation Musician, music director, businessman
Spouse(s) Jiza Agashe (divorced 2008)
Children Adi Agashé and 1 daughter.
Parent(s) Dnyaneshwar Agashe (father) and Rekha Agashe (mother)
Relatives Ashutosh Agashe (brother), Sheetal Agashe (sister) Ashutosh Phatak (3rd cousin), Kaustubh Marathe (3rd cousin), Saurabh Gadgil (13th cousin), Dilip Dandekar (1st cousin-in-law, 1x removed)

Musical career

Genres
Occupation(s) Singer, composer, songwriter, music director
Labels
Associated acts

Mandar Agashe (born 24 May 1969) is an Indian musician, music producer and businessman. He is the son of businessman and cricketer Dnyaneshwar Agashe,[1] brother of cricketer Ashutosh Agashe and actress Sheetal Agashe, father of singer-songwriter Adi Agashé, and grandson of industrialist Chandrashekhar Agashe. He is the founder and vice chairman of Sarvatra Technologies Pvt. Ltd.[2] and has served as director to Brihans Technologies, Brihans E-Commerce, Brima Finance, and Agashe Brothers Financing Co, among others.[3]

Agashe was catapulted to stardom when in 1998 he released the Indi-pop album "Nazar Nazar" in which he doubled as composer and singer. His video for the lead single from the album, also called Nazar Nazar was a hit in all major TV music channels of India and remains his most famous song.[4]

Early life

Agashe was born on 24 May 1969 into the entrepreneurial, aristocratic Chitpavan brahmin[5] family of businessman Dnyaneshwar Agashe and wife Rekha Agashe (née Gogte).[1] He and his brother, cricketer Ashutosh Agashe are the grandsons of industrialist Chandrashekhar Agashe. He also has one sister.

Having a well documented pedigree, he is also a known 3rd cousin of co-founder of The True School of Music, Mumbai, Ashutosh Phatak, through his father. He is a 13th cousin of chairman and managing director of PNG Jewellers, Saurabh Gadgil,[1] and is a 1st cousin-in-law, once removed, of chairman and managing director of Kokuyo Camlin Ltd., Dilip Dandekar, and a 3rd cousin of co-founder of Marathe Jewellers, Kaustubh Marathe, through his mother.[1][6]

He was married to model turned financial planner Jiza Agashe (née Pandharkar) till 2008. They have 2 children together, including singer-songwriter Adi Agashé.[1]

Business career

Agashe started his career when he became director for 3 family held businesses in 1994, Brima Finance Pvt. Ltd., Dnyaneshwar Investments, and his namesake Mandar Agashe Finance & Investments Pvt. Ltd.[3] He was also the namesake for his father's founded business: Mandar Printing Press. Between 2001 and 2012, Agashe became director for New Age Softech, Inspire Networks, Agashe Brothers Financing Co, Brihans Technologies, Brihans Natural Products and Brihans E-Commerce.[3]

Sarvatra Technologies

His most renowned startup was Sarvatra Technologies in 2000,[3] when his family's Pune-based bank Suvarna Sahakari Bank took its first step towards high-tech banking in 2003 by installing "Sarvatra", an anywhere money software system, developed by EBZ Online Pvt Ltd (a company Agashe was director of).[7] "Sarvatra" was available at all 12 branches of the bank in Maharashtra that same year.[7]

The Goa State Cooperative Bank Ltd. (GSCB) launched the "Any Where Money" facility on November 20, 2004.[8] Sarvatra accounts were offered at 13 branches in all talukas of Goa initially and later extended to 64 branches spread across Goa, Daman and Diu. Later, branches of other member banks were also networked.[8] GSCB became only the second cooperative bank in the country to implement the anywhere money facility after the Sri Suvarna Sahakari Bank in Maharashtra that year.[8]

Niraj Naik of CyberMedia News, writing for The DQ Week acclaimed, "The most interesting feature of this system is that the bank intending to implement it need not be computerized nor it needs the expensive computer network. All that it needs is the POS terminal costing around Rs 25,000 and the Sarvatra software, which cost Rs one lakh per branch and a telephone line."[9]

Suvarna Sahakari Bank Scam 2008

Following the scandal his father was a part of involving the family's Suvarna Sahakari Bank,[7] the economic offences wing (EOW) of Pune police arrested Agashe, who was the former director of the Suvarna Co-operative Bank, for his alleged involvement in the Rs 436.74-crore fraud.[10] Deputy Commissioner of Police (EOW) Rajendra Dahale said his team had arrested Agashe, one of the 21 accused in the case.[10] Agashe's father, Dnyaneshwar Agashe, who was in magisterial custody, had died of heart failure at Sassoon Hospital on January 2, 2009.[10]

Agashe was produced before the Shivajinagar court where Judicial Magistrate (first class) G G Itkalkar remanded him in police custody till February 11.[10] Public prosecutor A V Ausekar told the court that Agashe was director of the bank between 1998 and 2006.[10] He allegedly sanctioned 21 forged loan proposals to the tune of Rs 82.2 lakh. Adding interest, the amount had then gone up to Rs 113.69 crore.[10] Ausekar also said Agashe had 19 companies and the police custody of Agashe was required to check if his companies were original. Agashe's counsel Shrikant Shivade argued that the high court had granted bail to Ashutosh Agashe in the case.[10]

Additional sessions judge Sanjay Patil in March, rejected the bail application of Agashe.[11] Additional public prosecutor Neelima Vartak prayed to reject Agashe's bail application as there was sufficient evidence against him.[11] Defence lawyer Girish Kulkarni prayed to release his client on bail on parity because the Bombay high court had earlier granted bail to co-suspect Ashutosh Agashe.[11]

Music career

Starting off as a rock-n-roll musician in college, Agashe launched a website called musicurry.com, when he was a student of computer engineering and was into production of herbal cosmetics under the family conglomerate.[12] He came into the music field as a co-music director with Pandit Hridayanath and sang his first playback song with Asha Bhosle.[12] He has also composed for Marathi films.[13] He was also keen on working with Usha Mangeshkar on a disco record when she was advisor to his brainchild, musicurry.com and it's record label.[12]

The "Nazar Nazar" album

He was catapulted to stardom when in 1998 he released the Indi-pop album "Nazar Nazar" in which he doubled as composer and singer. His video for his song, also called "Nazar Nazar" was a hit in all major TV music channels of India and remains his most famous song.[14] The success of this single was followed by his song "Mere Sanam"[14] and the accompanying music video from the "Nazar Nazar" album was well received by fans and critics for "the monochrome imagery, the one-room location and the deliberately raw production of this video emphasize the hollowness that has crept into the urban culture."[14]

The third single from the album, "Chhodo Jaanam", featured choreography from Sandip Soparrkar and featured Agashe's sister as one of the lead characters in the music video.[14]

The fourth and final single and accompanying music video that was released from this album was for a song off the album called "Kal Teri Duniya Mein" in 1999 which was a duet between Agashe and then-upcoming singer Amruta.[14] The music video features Deepanita Sharma, a leading model of India who acted in the Hindi film "16 December".[14]

Eponymous sophomore album & venture into English music

In 2002, Agashe surprised his Indi-pop fans by releasing the eponymous English album, a blend of modern musical textures and rock and roll.[14] He release "Oceans" as his first single from the album. The album was well received, critics praised the songs in the album as "simple and straightforward, with unpretentious vocals and strong backbeats."[14]

"Oceans" was followed by "Baby" and "Hey Hey Hey" as follow up singles.[14] The music video for "Hey Hey Hey" was shot on a secluded island in Thailand.[14] The video features Italian-Brazilian model Mercilia.[14]

In 2003, choosing to flow from techno to trance to Indian classical, Agashe planned to go international and release a single in Germany.[13] He worked with agent, Michael Heiss[13] to cut deals with radio stations to air and release the single in Germany called "I Need Someone".[13] India Times' Huned Contractor said: "It is a track that showcases a different style altogether with Mandar providing it with a laidback attitude and the smoothness of a drawl."[13]

Single "Jaan Le" & album "82"

In 2005, Agashe released a music video single titles "Jaan Le" with digitally filtered vocals and macabre lyrics.[14]

In 2016, he released a reprise effort with Asha Bhosle in the form of an album called "82",[15] reflecting the veteran singer's age at the time of recording.[16] Acting as music director and composer, he featured six of Suresh Bhat's never-heard-before ghazals. Bhat had given Agashe 10 of his poems prior to his demise.[16] "He had then told me that he wanted my style of music for his ghazals. He had this desire that his ghazals should be sung by Asha Bhosle in pop genre," said Agashe in a press interview.[16]

The songs were given different treatments like Pop, Reggae, Blues, and Ballad.[15] As a promotional tool for the album, a website was created (www.82pop.in) and it hosted a competition for fan made videos of the six songs from the album.[15]

Discography

List of singles and albums
Title Album details Notes
Nazar Nazar
  • Released: 1998
  • Label: Fountain Music Company
  • Format: CD, LP, digital download
Mandar Agashe
  • Released: 2002
  • Label: Sony BMG
  • Format: CD, LP, digital download
Jaan Le - Single
  • Released: 2005
  • Label: Sony BMG
  • Format: Music video, digital download
  • Released as video single.
82
  • Released: 2016
  • Label: -
  • Format: Digital download
  • Credited as music director, composer and executive producer.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Express News Service (5 February 2009). "Fugitive run ends for economic fraud and dreaded gangster". Indian Express. Retrieved 5 October 2016. Mandar is the son of prime accused Dnyaneshwar Chandrashekhar Agashe
  2. "BOARD OF DIRECTORS". Sarvatra. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Companies Associated With". Zauba Corp. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
  4. "VIDEOS & IMAGES". Radaris. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
  5. Team. "Singers -kokanastha.com". www.kokanastha.com. Retrieved 2016-11-28.
  6. Agashe, Gopal; Agashe, Trupti (2006). Agashe Kulvrutant.
  7. 1 2 "Pune co-op bank installs ebz Online's software". The Hindu Business Line. July 26, 2003. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
  8. 1 2 3 "Goa State Cooperative Bank launches AWM facility". The Hindu. 22 November 2004. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
  9. Naik, Niraj (9 December 2004). "Co-operative Banks adopt Sarvatra". The DQ Week. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Fugitive run ends for economic fraud and dreaded gangster - Indian Express". Indian Express. Retrieved 5 October 2016. team has arrested Mandar
  11. 1 2 3 "Mandar Agashe's bail plea rejected - Times of India". Times of India. Retrieved 5 October 2016. rejected the bail application of Mandar Agashe
  12. 1 2 3 "I, Me, Myself". The Hindu. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 "Mandar to release single in Germany - Times of India". Times of India. Retrieved 5 October 2016. choosing to flow from techno to trance to Indian classical
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 "Find Mandar Agashe in US". radaris.com. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
  15. 1 2 3 "Asha Bhosale sings Suresh Bhat gajhals for her next album "82" - StarMarathi.in". starmarathi.in. Retrieved 5 October 2016. Titled as "82" and containing six gajhals, this album has been composed by young composer Mandar Agashe.
  16. 1 2 3 NYOOOZ. "Asha renders six Suresh Bhat ghazals to western tunes | Nagpur NYOOOZ". NYOOOZ. Retrieved 5 October 2016. The album has been titled to reflect the age of the versatile singer

External links

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