Shayan Chowdhury Arnob

Arnob's father, Swapan Chowdhury was a music and a film director. Swapan was a member of the team which sang songs for the freedom fighters of Bangladesh in 1971.[2] It was shown in the documentary Muktir Gaan. He had an elder sister, Milita Chowdhury. Tapan Chowdhury, his uncle, was a member of the Bangladeshi rock band Souls.[3]

Arnob's parents lived in Chittagong before his birth, but moved to Dhaka permanently when he was being appointed to Willes Little Flower School in 1983.[4] He was only a student in there for two years. He started playing tabla. As his mother wanted to study in Visva Bharati University, she took Arnob and his elder sister Milita to West Bengal and got the two of them appointed in Patha Bhavana (which is an ashram school inside Visva Bharati) in 1985.[3] He met Indian-Bangladeshi musician and his future wife Sahana Bajpaie in Santiniketan where he also became acquainted with Tagore songs around this time. But he said to a Bangladeshi magazine in 2014 that:

I never thought I would take music as a profession! Even at school, I was the worst in music.[5]

After completing his high school education, Arnob enrolled in the Visva Bharati University to study at the Fine Arts Academy in 1995. In late 1998, when he was a fourth-year student, he formed a folk band named Bangla, because of his interests in the Bauls and Lalon. He stated that "the freedom that he found in the baul music mainly inspired him to form a band." In the same year, his cousin Anusheh Anadil, came to visit him in Santiniketan. In early 1999, Arnob along with Anusheh and Buno formed Bangla band and had their first show in Kolkata Book Fair in 1999.

After living in Santiniketan for some years he came back to Dhaka and Kartik, Shantunu and Nazrul joined his band. In 2000, Arnob married his childhood friend and Indian-Bangladeshi musician Sahana Bajpaie. Bangla took part in "the Benson and Hedges Star Search" competition and Arnob received the Award for Best Instrumentalist, for playing esraj. The same year, Bangla released its debut album, Kingkortobbobimurho in 2002. In 2004, his first solo song 'She Je Boshe Ache' was released as the title track of the teleplay Off Beat, which started at 36:55 of the teleplay.[6] This was the original acoustic version, which was written, composed, and sung by Arnob. Later, it was performed by Black in their compilation album Shopnochura which was released in the same year. However, because the Black version was released in 2004 (but after the release of the original version by Arnob in Off Beat earlier in 2004) and Arnob's original version was also included in his debut album Chaina Bhabish much later in 2005, many confused the version performed by Black to be the original one.

In the fall of 2004, Arnob signed a contract with Ektaar for one year. He started the recording of his debut album, Chaina Bhabish, in March 2005 in the EML studio in Gulshan, Dhaka.[7][8] It ended in May and the album was released on 1 June 2005. The album featured some of his work, "Amar Hariye Jawa" and "Hariye Giyechi". The song "Bibek Bebagi" is considered to be a political song, as in the lyrics it questioned the on-going political situation in the country. Two songs in the album was written by Arnob, "She Je Boshe Ache" and "Chuya Chuyi".[9]

Arnob began 2006 by signing with a new label, Bengal Music Company. His next album, Hok Kolorob, was recorded in 2005 in BMC studio, which mostly contained songs by Taufiqe Riaz. One track on this album, "Tomar Jonno" was written by Sahana Bajpaie and composed by Arnob. The self-titled song, "Hok Kolorob" was called by many a protest song. It was used as a slogan in the 2014 Jadavpur University Students movement.[10][11] About that he said to Indian Express: "My politics is a gut reaction, guided by practicality rather than an ideology. I don’t consider myself to be a political person, I couldn’t say if I am right-wing or left-wing. Things have to make sense for me to throw my weight behind it".[12] In this album, Arnob has co-written four songs alongside Taufiqe, Sahana and Milita and wrote only one full song, "Chalak Tumi". The same year, Arnob won two Channel i Music Awards: "Best Album Artwork" award for the artwork of Hok Kolorob and "Best Rock Album" award for his participation in Prayer Hall's album Bujhcho. He also composed many songs in Sahana's debut album Notun Kore Pabo Bole, which was released in 2007.

Arnob's early April 2008 album, Doob contained mostly new songs and more electrically amplified rock songs than his previous albums. The album featured many contemporary artists like, Sahana Bajpaie, Zohad Reza Chowdhury (Nemesis), the Mak, Idris Rahman, Saad and Andrew Morris. This album also marks as his first to feature a rabindra sangeet, "Noyon Tomare". "Shopno Debe Doob", a song written by Sahana was included in the Poems Collection of Shonkho Ghosh. Many critics said that "it didn't match the success and popularity of his previous albums".

In the mid-2008, Arnob backed up by Nazia Islam (vocals), Resalat Dhrubo (bass guitars), Jibon (drums) and Nazrul (dhol) took part in a world tour, organised by Drishtipat and sponsored by HSBC. The tour only contained five concerts in Washington, New York, Texas, Toronto and London. The concert was arranged to raise money for Drishtipat's project "Child Domestic Workers Education" and some other development projects in Bangladesh. In November 2009, Arnob released a live album named Arnob & Friends Live: Songs from the World Tour '08 from BMC.[13] In 2009, he started his own record label named Adhkana Records. .

Recorded and released from his own studio and label, his fourth studio album, Rod Boleche Hobe was neither as successful as the previous albums or nor as well received by fans. It was released in October 2010 and the original CD booklet featured artworks and poems by Arnob.

Arnob recorded a whole rabindra sangeet album in the popular music scene, Adheko Ghume. It was released by BMC in June 2012 and was recorded in Adhkhana studio. It was a tribute to Rabindranath Tagore and a homage to his life at Santiniketan.

Arnob's sixth studio album Khub Doob was released in May 2015 from Adhkhana. Most of the songs on these album were composed by him and Sahana Bajpaie.

Arnob's first documentary film, Introspection, was on his father Swapan Chowdhury for one of his exhibitions on his water color series hosted by Bengal foundation.

In 2022, Arnob was seen collaborating with other Bangladeshi artistes to launch the inaugural season of Coke Studio Bangla, the Bangladeshi version of the Coke Studio franchisee.[14]

Arnob travelled to Santiniketan was enrolled to Patha Bhavana in 1985. There he met Sahana Bajpaie and After being in a relationship for almost seven years, he married her in 2000. Sahana has written many songs for Arnob and sang backup in many songs of Arnob, from 2005 to 2008.[15] All the songs in her debut album, Notun Kore Pabo Bole were composed by Arnob. In the fall of 2008, the couple were divorced.

Sunidhi Nayak

From 2019, Arnob started dating Sunidhi Nayak, whom, too, he met in Santiniketan. Sunidhi, who is originally from Asansol, West Bengal, was then pursuing her master's degree in Rabindra Sangeet from Visva Bharati, Santiniketan.[16] Arnob married her on 28 October 2020. Arnob has many associated acts with Sunidhi, especially Tagore songs. One of their works together is the Rabindra Sangeet Ei toh Tomar Alokdhenu.[17]

{{quotebox He doesn’t follow any specific religion. ?[12] |source= — Indian Express, June 2015|width=45%|align=left|style=padding:8px;}}