At the age of two, when most toddlers start to babble, Shivali Bhammer would melodiously chant, Hari Bol. "I was a baby preacher, and my audience consisted of my great grandmother and great aunts," she laughs. When she hit her teens, Bhammer's feelings about devotional music only got stronger. "I felt that bhajans in India were poorly produced and, if they had to find an appeal among a wider audience, they needed to have more than just a harmonium and tabla. I thought why not give God a full orchestra."

The London-born singer, who divides her time between Mumbai, New York and the UK, is the youngest and only artiste to be signed by Sony Music BMG for the bhajan genre. Her devotional albums, The Bhajan Project and Urban Temple, reached the top position on the iTunes world chart last year. She was also listed among the Top 25 under 25 South Asian Artistes in England. Her reason for gravitating towards the genre stems from the need to deviate from mainstream music. "People constantly sing about love, sex, physical appearances, heartbreak, revenge and loss. I wanted to sing about something higher, about faith; music that gives you the strength to detach, to focus, and to look inward."