Mitul and Mukul

Mitul & Mukul are brothers who have proven their stand in the music world. As performers, Mitul & Mukul pleased the crowds with their creativity and talent, and as creators, they have now stepped up to the real music world with a punch. And they have a head start too - making their debut album, Mukul was just 17 and Mitul, 23. The amazing thing about the two is that their music is pervasively their own. They get involved with all aspects of their music: everything from songwriting, composing, and creation, to singing, and even mixing, is accomplished by them. They don't like it when other people mess with their music.

Mitul & Mukul spent initial years of their lives in America, after their parents first moved from India in 1982. Mukul was born in America, and spent the first five years of his life in Edison, New Jersey. After that, the family moved back to India and for the next seven years, stayed in Baroda, Gujarat. The brothers were profoundly influenced by the culture and life of India, an influence which would reflect heavily in their music years later.

Their early music lives took the shape of learning vocal classical music and playing the flute and keyboard (instruments which they astonishingly taught themselves). Mukul played the flute in all of his school events, and people soon started recognizing him as the "flute-whiz". He even performed with a local Garba group at the age of 9. Music became an engaging hobby.

With Mitul entering college, the family moved back to America in 1999, hoping for Mitul to get the best education. Music tagged along, and Mukul started to concentrate more on the keyboard. The brothers started performing locally, and gained immense popularity among the Indian community. They would eventually perform in such places as New York and Las Vegas. Their music was well-appreciated, and they then formed a group called MFusion with two cousins and a friend. Their performance career peaked when MFusion single-handedly raised $20,000 for the public library and was felicitated by the internationally-renowned composer A.R. Rahman in the New York Indian Independence Day Parade.

Mitul graduated in 2003 at the top of his class in Computer Engineering, and went off to Columbia University for graduate school. This was short-lived, however, as he soon came back to New Jersey and started working for a defense company called BAE Systems. Mukul was still in high school. But their hearts still belonged in their music, and this was when they decided to dive headfirst into their music and started work on their first original album. The album, Saajaniya, was completed in ten months, from February to November of 2004, and they went off to India to release their confident and unique single, "Saajaniya".

Once in India, the two signed with Saregama HMV and in June 2005, released Saajaniya, which immediately became Request No. 1 on Channel [V] and was hailed by critics as a breath of fresh air in the struggling music industry clogged with remixes. They toured and promoted all summer, appearing on TV shows such as MTV Select and on radio interviews with stations such as Radio City and Radio Mirchi. Further, they became ETC's "Rising Star of the Month" and brand ambassadors of Zee TV's Siti Channel.

Suffice it to say that Mitul & Mukul gained fame overnight and that their debut album was a success. They returned to America in September 2005, exhausted, yet never too exhausted for music. Indeed, they started working on their second album almost immediately, aiming to release it in the summer of 2006.