From a radio audition in 1985 to thousands of mehfils.

Biography

Sanjay Banubakode is a ghazal, sufi and playback singer and music director based in Nashik, Maharashtra. Audiences across India have known him for most of his career as Sanjaye Vatsal — a stage name built on his mother’s name, and the one on his albums, his singles and his YouTube channel — and he now performs under the name he was born with.

His story begins at All India Radio, Nagpur, where he passed the light-music audition at his first attempt in 1985, still in his teens. Doordarshan followed: live ghazal concerts on the national broadcaster through the late 1980s and 1990s, and in 2006 a nationally televised concert, Bahar-e-Ghazal, of ghazals by Padma Shri Dr. Bashir Badr composed and sung by him. In February 2019 he performed on Rajya Sabha TV on the birth anniversary of Jagjit Singh, whose ghazals remain the heart of his concerts.

On record, his first album was Dekhani, a set of Marathi ghazals to the poetry of Pradip Nifadkar released by Saregama HMV. Ek Tukda Aasman Ka, recorded with the celebrated classical vocalist Aarti Ankalikar-Tikekar, was released on N A Classical with Times Music in 2009 — and it was around this release, at the suggestion of listeners who found Banubakode hard to say, that he took the stage name Sanjay Vatsal. When Sony DADC prepared his next albums it advised keeping the name, and with one added letter it became Sanjaye Vatsal. Aameen – The Blessing (2015) and Huzoor – Ghazals & Nazm (2016), both released through Sony DADC, set the poetry of Bashir Badr, Shahid Kabir, Dr. Sameer Kabeer, Sharique Barelvi, Zubair Ali Tabish and others — Aameen drew a handwritten letter of appreciation from Gulzar, addressed to Sanjay and Sanjyot. Sun Zaraa (2019) is an eight-song set of original Hindi songs, and since 2020 he has released nineteen singles ranging from ghazal to Marathi bhakti, Sikh devotional and festival songs, most produced by his son Shlok Aashay. He sang playback on "Bachpan" for the Hindi film Summer Camp.

On stage he is a mehfil singer in the classic sense: harmonium, tabla, and a repertoire that runs from Jagjit Singh, Mehdi Hassan and Ghulam Ali to sufi kalaam, bhajan, Marathi ghazal and the Bollywood of Mukesh and Kishore. Memorable evenings include Jashn-e-Ghalib for the Maharashtra State Urdu Academy in Nagpur, a private mehfil at Dr. Bashir Badr's home in Bhopal, and the concert at the release of Shahid Kabir's Uski Gali Mein in the presence of Hasan Kamaal. He has performed for the Taj, Oberoi, Hyatt, Marriott and Radisson groups, at Rambagh Palace in Jaipur, for corporate houses from the Bombay Stock Exchange and Mahindra to Sun Pharma, HDFC Bank and L&T, for medical conferences and service clubs, for the Army, Air Force and police — including evenings for the Defence Minister of India, the Chief of the Army Staff and senior officers of the School of Artillery and the Combat Aviation Training School — for the festival calendar from Padwa Pahat to Diwali, and for charities supporting cancer patients, the elderly and the differently abled.

He performs as a duo with his wife, ghazal singer and compere Sanjyot Banubakode, and often with Shlok Aashay on vocals.