The Indian tradition of engrossing a child into music from birth, especially, for those born in a musical dynasty has produced many great musicians and has also kept the various gharanas (schools) of music alive. But this radical approach makes it equally difficult for an individual to cross over to other forms of music and evolve a new sphere for him or herself. Today hailed as one of the premier slide-guitarist, Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya was born in such a musical dynasty and was being trained as a vocalist by his parents from an age when he could hardly pronounce. However, destiny had other plans. As a three-year-old child, the instrument that he was first drawn to was a Hawaiian lap steel guitar left lying around the house, recalls Bhattacharya. During his formative years, he learned both the western guitar and the sitar, but later in his twenties, he learned the Indian Raga Sangeet for more than 7 years, under the tutelage of his Guru (master), Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra, who is the pioneer in playing ragas on slide-guitar. Motivated by his guru's melodies, which Kabra played on converted arch tops, Debashis started to design his own lap-slide instruments, from an early age. For Debashish, the struggle was two-fold. First, he had to convince his parents and then the rest of the world that his rendition of the ragas on his guitar is very much rooted to the traditions of Indian classical music. I remember that during my teens I participated in a concert organised by the Government of West Bengal, where the winner was to be awarded with a scholarship. Though I did come first, I wasn't awarded the scholarship as because I played a slide-guitar, which is not a traditional Indian instrument, said a visibly thoughtful Bhattacharya, who was honored by British Broadcasting Corporation with the Planet Award for World Music in 2007 for his latest album Calcutta Slide Guitar 3 and the Asiantic Society recognized his contribution to Indian classical music with a Gold Medal. Now aged 46, and officially a Pandit (master musician) since 40, he is widely acknowledged as one of the world's greatest slide guitarists, and has invented and patented (under the US patent law) his own "Trinity of Guitars", which will soon earn its rightful place in the Musical Instrument Museum in Tempe, Arizona, USA. The word "Trinity" is synonymous with the word "Trinetra", the three eyes associated with goddess Durga, epitomizing reverence, faith, and power. However, for Bhattacharya, it typifies his perseverance, passion and probity that he has for his music, who is considered both an ardent purist and a maverick in the Indian classical music scene.

The beauty of all his instruments is that they are multicultural instruments that can be used by jazz and blues slide guitarists, as well as those playing ragas, may not be ethnic music for some, but rather global music for everyone to share and love. The first of Debashis's trinity is what he calls "Chaturangui", is the Indian version of a western slide guitar. It has six primary sliding strings, twelve resonating or sympathetic strings, two chikaris- a pair of strings located beyond the main strings, tuned an octave apart from one another and two drone strings, or which he prefers to call supporting strings. The second member of the trinity is the Gandharvi, that Debashish fondly calls his second child, consists of seven pair strings with a hallow neck and has a close proximity to that of a 12-string guitar and sounds more like a flamenco guitar. "Gandharva loc", is a Sanskrit term meaning 'cosmic world'. The third member in the trinity family is the tiny four stringed hallow necked "Anandi", meaning joy in Sanskrit, is basically a slide ukulele. "But unlike Chaturangui and Gandharvi, which was built in Kolkata (Calcutta), it was made in British Columbia by Michael Dunn, informs Debashis.

Happily married with two children, Debashish thanks the almighty for all that he has. Anyone who has understood life the way I have, that there is no bigger accolade, success or achievement than being 'a human being -God's Creation', and to feel each wave in the senses as only we human's can, are the kind of people that are close to my heart and in my inner circle of life, said he.