Nikhil Chinapa, who dons many hats, says that music is his life force. “I think nobody can exist without music. The impact it has on me is phenomenal. The strongest memories of my life are all connected with music.” A VJ, RJ, DJ, Nikhil is also the festival director of Sunburn Festival of Goa.
According to Nikhil, the Sunburn Festival of Goa, which is now considered Asia's premier music festival, was the result of his wish to share the kind of music he loves with his friends. “It is not just about music. The festival provides avenue where people can come with friends and enjoy to the hilt,” says the versatile Nikhil, who was in the Capital recently for MTV Act in association with Project Akshar (Activists for Knowledge Stimulated Harmony and Advancement in Rural Areas), a Shahjahanpur-based NGO has come up with for recycling and reusing paper.
On associating himself with such social issues, Nikhil says, “Yes I do a lot of fun stuff but I have a serious side to my personality that I usually keep under wraps. This cause of recycling paper seemed very interesting to me. There is a lot of paper that goes waste in our day-to-day work space. Our initiative is to recycle the paper, convert it into notebooks and the sale proceeds go to Sahara, Prabhat and other NGOs working against drug abuse and for the hearing impaired.” Seven first year students of Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies would accompany Nikhil in this endeavour.
Coming back to his music, Nikhil shares with us that he is trying to provide alternative music to people through Sunburn Festival. He says, “In a country where there are 1.3 million active Internet users, people have exposure to many forms of music. I have seen many fan clubs of Latin and Salsa music. People throw Salsa parties. Thus with technology, alternatives of any form become accessible. I started Sunburn as I wanted to create a music revolution of sorts and I am happy people find it amazing and turn for it in droves every year.”
Sunburn Festival is coming to Delhi in October this year and Nikhil signs off with a promise, “The music lovers will get to hear an India that is very much 21st Century.”
