Pratul plays Tabla for Jigary. He started learning Tabla since the age of 5. His guru Late Shri UmaSharan Varma, son of Pt. Kallu Ustad, belonged to the rich music lineage of Etawah Gharana, also known as lmdadkhani Gharana. His first solo stage performance was in Etawah in 1978 when he was 6 years old. At the age 10, he graduated with a senior diploma in music from Prayag Sangeet Samiti, Allahabad, which is the largest music academy in North India. Pratul graduated with his electrical engineering degree from Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Agra and also continued to pursue Tabla accompany and Hindi theatre for mainly mono act plays in university and Inter University events. Pratul started his professional career as a Systems Officer with Management Services Division of Tata Motors (Telco) Pune (now Tata Technologies) and worked there for almost 5 years before moving to Silicon Valley in 1999. He had taken various consulting and permanent positions with technology companies and businesses like Speedera Networks, Stanford University and Neoforma and presently he is a systems management consultant to Wachovia Bank. He now lives in Fremont, California with his wife, Surat Pyari, and still figuring out a balance between his professional life and music
