Girish Chandegra aged 56 was born and raised in London. Girish’s parents and grandparents are natively the Saurashtrans that migrated to East Africa in the 1930s.
Girish was raised by Parents who spoke English very well but preferred to raise Girish inthe Gujarati language at home. Hence Girish never really knew any English till he was aged 3.
Girish grew up in a UK Indian environment with a surrounding full of Hindi film songs. However Girish was accustomed to the odd Gujarati song like Raakhana Ramakadaand Mendi Te Vaavi that played on Girish’s dad’s spool tape recorder in the1970s.
From the age of 10 onwards Girish started a passionate record collection and now hold sover 4000 Indian Lp (Long Play) records, 1000s of Ep records and at least 6000Indian CDs. Not to forget the ever-increasing cassette tapes. It is often said by esteemed Global Record Collection Societies including PRS (Performing Rights Society) that Girish probably has the largest collection of Gujarati songs in the world.
Girish works as an IT Consultant in the City of London and is the spouse to wife Gauri and Father to son Neeraj aged 24 and daughter Nandini aged 22. Both Neeraj and Nandini are engaged in professional occupations in the City of London.
Girish hasclose homely relationships with stalwart Gujarati Composers Gaurang Vyas and Purshottam Upadhyay. Composer Gaurang Vyas has often referred that Girish Chandegra is the most probable individual that knows maximum information on the life, times and songs of Avinash Vyas.
Girish hasan intense passion for the stage and the theatre. He has written 7 ballets(Nritya Naatikas) in the Gujarati and Hindi languages. These have been sung by prominent Bollywood singers Suresh Wadkar, Kavita Krishnamurthi, Anuradha Paudwal and Sadhana Sargam.
In his spare time Girish works endlessly on archiving, restoring and creating a heritage of rare Gujarati songs for his YouTube channel Swar Eeshwar.