From balance sheets to ballads: How a Belagavi CA built a studio to chase music

Belagavi: For most of his life, Ashok Paranjape lived with two notebooks. One for audits and tax files. The other, filled with melodies and lyrics he wrote late at night.

A Fellow Chartered Accountant by profession, Paranjape never stopped believing that a song could say what words alone couldn’t. That quiet passion has now become Kashma-Kash — a music label born not in Mumbai or Bengaluru, but in Belagavi.

“Melodies can tell stories that cross language and geography,” Paranjape says. With Kashma-Kash, launched by his company SVAN Finesse along with UK’s Downboy Global/Sounds Inc., he’s trying to prove it.

The name itself means life’s crossroads and dilemmas — the kind of feelings Paranjape has spent years trying to capture in his compositions.

Here’s what makes it different: the singing happens right here in Belagavi. Vocals are recorded at SVAN’s new studios in the city, then sent to London where producers who’ve worked with Stevie Wonder, Celine Dion and Mariah Carey finish the tracks.

But Paranjape isn’t building this just for himself. He and team members Varsha Paranjape and Raj Belgaumkar set up two professional studios, with the same mics, acoustics and software you’d find in big music hubs. There’s also “Pancham Caravan,” a cozy jam room for 50 people to write songs and perform.

And it’s open. To college kids, local bands, anyone from Belagavi and nearby towns who’s ever thought, “I’d need to go to Mumbai to record.”“Our city has immense talent,” Paranjape says. “We want them to create international-quality music from their own hometown.”For decades Belagavi was known for factories and colleges. Now, a CA who kept a songbook on the side wants it to be known for music too — music made at home, but heard across the world.