I started learning the piano at age four, after being diagnosed with ADHD [Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder]. I needed something to keep me busy. Soon, my parents and I realised that I had a knack for it. While I was good at academics and sports, I kept coming back to the keys," says musician Tushar Lall of The Indian Jam Project. At 24, he is still at it, and recently received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, for, as he says "his contribution to Indian classical music". "I think they saw that there is something 'real' in my work," says the artiste. The Dadasaheb Phalke Award is given annually at the National Films Awards, and honours people for their outstanding contribution to the growth and development of Indian cinema and culture.

His work, which is in form of The Indian Jam Project, involves giving Hollywood scores an Indian classical music twist. His interpretation of the Game of Thrones theme, made using tabla and a bansi, went viral for all the right reasons. This fusion aesthetic finds root in his childhood, where his mother would listen to Fareeda Khannum and father would play Abba and Beatles at full volume. "I would copy these tunes on my keyboard. Fusion comes to me naturally as I was always around these two different schools of thought," says the musician, who left for New York at 17 to study music production at Dubspot, the DJ school. "I still don't know theory, but I wanted to learn everything about production - every process that goes into making a track. I wanted to be able do it all myself."