Rahul Ram

Biography:

Rahul Ram is an Indian bass guitarist, composer, and social activist. He joined the band Indian Ocean in 1991 and currently plays bass guitar for them. Along with Varun Grover and Sanjay Rajoura, he is one of the three members of “Aisi Taisi Democracy.” Rahul was born into a Kannadiga family, the son of renowned botanists Professor H.Y. Mohan Ram and Dr. Manasi Ram, a Bengali botanist who was a founding member of the University of Delhi’s Botany Department. He is the nephew of the late H. Y. Sharada Prasad, who gained notoriety as Indira Gandhi’s communications advisor.

Following his education at Delhi’s St. Xavier’s School, he pursued a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Delhi’s St. Stephen’s College before earning an MSc in the same field from IIT Kanpur. He then attended Cornell University on an Andrew White fellowship to pursue a PhD in environmental toxicology from 1986 to 1990. He became an activist with the Narmada Bachao Andolan (1990–95) as a result of his dissertation studies on environmental toxicology. He spent five years of his life with that activist organization right after receiving his PhD from Cornell.