Having trained in Bharatnatyam since he was a kid, microbiologist Raghu Dixit could not find a teacher like Nandini Eshwar--who taught him for 17 years — when he moved from Mysore to Bangalore. Then he discovered the joy of expressing himself through music. “I also grew too heavy to dance,” he laughs. He is able to joke about it with ease now but there was a time when the emphasis the music industry here places on glamour left him feeling very vulnerable. “A marketing head told me that I wasn’t good-looking enough to be able to sell my music. That can make any artiste feel small and worthless. Then I met duo Vishal and Shekhar who took me under their wing. There’s been no looking back since,” he smiles. He did prove that talent can triumph over looks when The Raghu Dixit Project made it to the local charts. People are appreciating his unique mix of folk, rock, reggae, blues, Arabic grooves and jazz or what he terms as “Indo World Folk Rock.” Raghu’s philosophy is simple – he wants to incorporate as many styles as possible in his music. One constant is the way he approaches his work. “I never ever want to be a protest musician who is determined to save the world. We have enough of those already. I just want to be able to get people to thoroughly enjoy my shows and songs.”