Monisha ~ songwriter, singer and musician

As a three year old, Monisha knew she wanted to sing. She was born in Bangalore, India into a Christian family. Her father was a pastor and Monisha and her two sisters, Mahima and Supriya would often be asked to help out with the singing at church.

When Monisha was seven, her family left for Trinidad and Tobago to serve as missionaries. Monisha would often play with her dad’s musical instruments whenever she could and eventually learned to play keyboards by ear. Poetry was also her passion during her childhood years.

Monisha moved to Augusta, Georgia to attend high school and living away from her close-knit family was a challenging experience for her. Being a shy teenager, she learned to express herself through music and song-writing. This was the start of a three-year-old’s dream coming true.

Upon returning to Trinidad, Monisha became involved in the music department at her father’s church. She and her sister, Supriya would sing whenever their father was asked to speak at other churches. During that time, Monisha also studied mix engineering and MIDI programming.

After much patience and many trials runs, Monisha released her first album, “Resting Place” in 2000. It was a reflection of the Indian and Caribbean influences on her style.

Since then, Monisha’s music has evolved into a fusion of Ethnic and Alternative Rock music styles.

In her studio, Monisha is currently working on her second album, “Green” scheduled for release in 2008.

General Blog

I remember my first time sequencing, with a 12” toy keyboard and my dual deck tape recorder. I’d start by recording a “canned” rhythm off the keyboard and then over dub the other instruments one by one.
By the time the “track” was ready for my vocals my original drum track would sound like distant explosions behind a much distorted piano or guitar and my poor tape recorder speakers would buzz with the bass and hiss out white noise like a pressure cooker.
The amazing thing is that faithful tape recorder is still in my garage somewhere!

I started writing poetry when I was about 8 but the music came in during my high school years. I wrote this song, got a classmate to play the guitar and sang it for some friends. That was the moment when I knew what I wanted to do.
I have to give all the credit to my parents for introducing me to church and to God who has become my greatest inspiration. Any meager talent I could hope to possess belongs to Him. In the studio, the creative side of me sometimes comes out in a jumbled mess and is almost more than my husband (and manager) Sid, can handle. Thank God for Sid! He makes some sense of the madness. With expertise on everything from building digital studios, computer engineering, graphic art, web design (to name just a few), and also being an amazing musician, he is definitely the steel behind this magnolia!

I write from life. Our daughter, Ocean is the epitome of life. Aptly named, she is my sweetest inspiration. Her pure view of life and love reminds me of how it should be and how many mistakes I could have missed out on if just had her trusting nature.
She loves to sing, and can be heard humming all over the house or at the top of her lungs to a theme song on TV. (Her favorite: theme song from SpongeBob Square pants.)

Singing runs in our family. My parents both sing as part of their ministry and when my two sisters (Mahima and Supriya) and I joined the family, we fell right into it. Mahima would play the guitar, I would play keyboards and Supriya was on the tambourine.
Our first “act” was on board an airplane on our way from India to New York. Our audience had no choice but to listen and thankfully didn’t throw any airplane food. I was only three at the time! My Dad would use any opportunity to have us sing including one time at a restaurant on a Sunday afternoon. We had to actually stand on a table and do a Sunday school action song. I was seven and the mortification was complete!
My family has really supported me and believed when even I didn’t but there are so many others who were there along the way.

That brings me to you. I don’t know your story but I write for you. I’m just a simple girl and living proof that God can use anything and anyone. Just knowing you are reading this inspires me beyond words.
I hope I encourage you to keep pushing for what you want.
Music is a journey for me and the most exciting part is you are taking this journey with me.
Only God knows where it will take us.