Pritam Chakraborty (Born 14 June 1971), also known mononymously as Pritam, is an Indian composer, instrumentalist, guitarist, and singer. After working as an ad jingles composer, he debuted as a co-composer in the 2001 Hindi film Tere Liye. As a solo composer, his composition of the title track of Dhoom helped him win the Zee Cine Award for Best Track of the Year. In a career spanning nearly two decades, he has composed music for more than 125 Bollywood Movies and he has been the recipient of numerous awards. Early life Pritam was born in a Bengali Brahmin family to Anuradha Chakraborty and Prabodh Chakraborty. He gained his early training in music from his father and learnt to play the guitar while he was still in school. He went to St. James' School and has a bachelor's degree in geology from Presidency College. Pritam was associated with the non-partisan political platform Independents' Consolidation during his days at Presidency. In 1994, Pritam joined FTII, Pune where he took up Sound Recording and Engineering. Pritam formed a band with his presidency batchmates, called "Jotugriher Pakhi" for which, he used to play the guitar. They even have a cassette released to their credit at that time. Pritam joined a Bangla band, Chandrabindoo. Later Pritam started band Metro with James, Suhail, Soham and Eric during his film called Life in a... Metro. Career Pre-Bollywood After completing his sound engineering course from FTII Pune, Chakraborty came to Mumbai in 1997. He started composing ad jingles where he met other budding artists such as Shantanu Moitra, Rajkumar Hirani, Sanjay Gadhvi and Jeet Gannguli. Pritam composed renowned jingles for brands like Santro, Emami, McDonald's, Head & Shoulders, Thums Up, Limca, Complan and composed title tracks for TV serials such as Astitva, Kkavyanjali, Ye Meri Life Hai, Remix, Kashmeer, Miilee, and Dil Kare. Early Bollywood career (with Jeet Gannguli) Pritam got his first break for Tere Liye (released December 2001). Though the music was well-received, the film missed the mark. In 2002, The Jeet-Pritam duo once again composed music for Yash Raj Films' Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai. All the songs from that movie were chartbusters. Soon after, over some misunderstanding, Jeet decided to split and the partners and go their separate ways. Solo career Pritam's compositions were noted for their ability to blend Indian classical music with western styles. His compositions for Gadhvi's second movie Dhoom were