Canadian-based Bollywood singers Vikas Khanna and Jonita Gandhi are set to return to Trinidad and Tobago T for a concert on September 29 at the Centre of Excellence in Macoya. Both singers have performed for sold out audiences in many countries as they toured with big names from India such as Sonu Nigam and Kumar Sanu.

Together with a 12-member team from the Canadian Indian Orchestra, Khanna and Gandhi are preparing both new and old songs from Bollywood films for the show. Khanna was born in Canada but has lived in India for eighteen years, where he completed his high school education. He returned to Canada to pursue his post-secondary education in Computer Science. 

A classically-trained vocalist, Khanna often chooses some of the most complicated songs to sing on stage. He made his first appearance on stage when he was only seven. The handsome singer could not escape the eyes of product management companies, however, and went on to star in Pepsi commercials, appear in Cosmopolitan, and promote Liberty Footwear and other popular brands in India., according to TT media.

He has also sung jingles for various companies in India, done voice-overs for some movies and a Canadian-cartoon programme. Khanna has been performing for eight years now and has done shows in US, Canada, England, Holland, the Caribbean and India. A corporate sales agent with IBM as well as a musician, Khanna lives a busy life rehearsing and performing on a weekly basis. 

“It is a thrill to learn the words and music of these songs that are so beautifully composed and be able to sing them for a live audience,” he said of learning Bollywood hits to present to his fans. He urged parents and South Asian youth alike to have the “right focus”, adding he had made enough mistakes and wrong choices during his life. Ghandi was born in New Delhi, India, in 1990, and moved to Canada when she was just nine months. She has had great passion for music and dance since a young age. At the age of three and a half, she performed dance routine for the first time and captivated the audience with her precise dance moves. Her parents also realised later that she had a natural sense of scale and rhythm. At the age of eleven she was a winner at the tenth Annual Singing Competition of Masood Khan in Toronto. 

Ghandi trained in Indian Classical Ragas from Mumbai and New Delhi and has enhanced her vocal skills not only in Indian classical singing, but in Western style singing at the Ontario Conservatory of Music. Described as a very down to earth and soft spoken person, Ghandi adores music and considers her voice a gift from God.