"Music is like respiration of the soul, and I feel like, to me anyways, it’s just that thing I have that gives me a sense of identity and a sense of purpose and it can be anything you want it to be,” says 25-year-old musician Viswas Chitnis. “It’s the end-all, you know, my ticket to immortality, hopefully, but it’s also to me a sense of spirituality.”

The Raleigh resident plays piano, guitar and drums, but his passion is playing the sitar. Chitnis has played the classical Indian instrument for 10 years and has studied with world-renowned sitar player Ali Akbar Khan in California.

Chitnis hopes to one day be a full-time musician, but for now he works as a chemist during the day at a pharmaceutical company. During his spare time, he performs as a solo artist playing the sitar as well as performing with hip-hop band Pro-L and rock band DMVB. Chitnis also formed a record label with friends called Futurock Records, which has put out five records so far.

Chitnis, who describes his first experience of hearing sitar music as mesmerizing, feels strongly about the future of the sitar with young musicians. “My teacher says that our music is dying and that when he goes back to India he can see that the music is dying … he has instilled in us [his students] a sense that we must not let this happen. Ultimately, I’m not here to make a million dollars or to sell a bunch of records or see my name on billboards. If I can find three or four musicians who I can instill a sense of purpose that my teacher has instilled in me then I’ve done my job,” says Chitnis as he prepares for an afternoon performance at a local Indian restaurant.