Rasika Dasi

Rasika Dasi is a bhajan and Hare Krishna kirtan singer raised in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition. She was born in Los Angeles and grew up in many parts of the world, and she calls India her real home. The holy towns of Navadwip and Vrindavan are what she sings about and what inspires her.

She learned the traditional bhajans of the Vaishnava acharyas from a very young age. For her these are not ordinary songs but prayers, and she sings them that way: songs by Bhaktivinoda Thakura such as Mama Mana Mandire and Gurudeva Kripa Bindu Diya, Vaishnava Das's Jaya Jaya Sri Guru Prema Kalpataru, and the Braj song Ali Mohe Lage Vrindavana Niko.

Her album Kirtaniya Sada Hari, named after a line of the Siksastakam, gathers eight of these bhajans and closes with a 15-minute Hare Krishna kirtan. Badahari Prabhu produced it and played harmonium, with Visvambara Das and other kirtaniyas on mridanga, flute and karatals. Her own website gives an English translation of every song, so listeners can follow the meaning.

She has also sung with the Kirtaniyas, the Los Angeles kirtan band of Vijay Krsna. She is a featured singer on Govinda Jaya Jaya on their album Heart & Soul, and she sang lead with Vijay Krsna on In Vrindavan, a charity single recorded with schoolgirls in Vrindavan.

On her YouTube channel she shares kirtans and bhajans from wherever she is: a kirtan in London, an annakut celebration at New Braj Dham in California, the Beatles Ashram, Times Square in New York. Her best-known video, Mama Mana Mandire, has been watched 28,000 times.

Rasika Dasi's kirtan is closer to a bhajan evening than a loud festival. She sings the old songs of the Vaishnava saints slowly, as prayers, and the room answers the refrain. In her London kirtan she sits at the harmonium with a mridanga player beside her and a small gathering seated around them. Her recordings move from quiet bhajans into a longer Hare Krishna kirtan at the end, with mridanga, flute and karatals. Because she publishes translations of what she sings, a host can share the meaning of each song with guests who do not know Bengali.