Euphoria Returns With 'Dhoomsday': 'I Never Left Medicine For Music,' Says Dr Palash Sen On His Journey & More

The title is impossible to miss. Nearly 28 years after Dhoom Pichak Dhoom became the soundtrack of every college festival, every farewell party and countless road trips, Euphoria is back with an album called Dhoomsday. It is an unmistakable nod to the song that changed the course of Indian independent music, but also a reminder that Dr Palash Sen, 60, has no intention of becoming a nostalgia act. The new album, featuring nine collaborations across languages and musical traditions — including a recreated duet with the late KK — is less a reunion with the past than a continuation of a journey that began in 1998. "Every song is talking about stuff that I think we all must be worried about, or concerned about, or expressing," Sen says. "I'm still trying to do the same thing that I did 27 years ago."

Ironically, the man behind one of India's biggest youth anthems never imagined he was writing one. "Not at all," he laughs, when asked if he knew Dhoom Pichak Dhoom would become generational shorthand for youthful abandon. "Even now, in 2026, I don't write any song thinking, 'Will it work? Will it become an anthem?' These are surprises that life has given me, the universe has given me. I just made a song."

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There was only one moment when instinct kicked in. "When I saw the first frame of the video, I knew we'd made something that would last forever."

Success, however, has always come with a lingering regret. "It's a little heartbreaking that besides the music videos, people don't really listen to the rest of the songs on the albums. We've worked so hard on all of them."

Finding an Indian voice

Long before ‘indie’ became an industry label, Sen had figured out why Indian rock bands weren't connecting with listeners.

"We were all singing in English because we thought it was a status symbol," he says. "But when we sang our own songs in English, there weren't too many takers. People only wanted Bon Jovi or Pink Floyd covers. I realised we were Indian boys singing in a foreign language. So how do you connect with the masses?"

The answer was to stop looking West. "I thought, why not discover our own language? We may communicate in English, but eventually we connect with our own food, our own culture, our own music. People want to hear something that belongs to them."

That decision — to blend rock with Hindi, Urdu, folk traditions and Indian classical influences — became Euphoria’s signature. It wasn’t accidental. At home, Sen grew up listening to Kishore Kumar and RD Burman as naturally as Queen, Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull. “It had to be an amalgamation of all my influences. That’s what people connected with.”

Doctor who never quit

For years, popular lore suggested that Dr Palash Sen gave up medicine for music. He quickly corrects that narrative. “I never said I’m going to leave medicine for music.” If anything, medicine remains one of his proudest achievements.

“I’d worked very hard to become a doctor. Competitive exams, medical college, professional exams — none of that is easy. And being a doctor is a huge responsibility.”

His mother worried less about music than about show business. “She wasn’t happy I’d enter that world,” he recalls. “So, I promised her two things. First, ‘I’ll never stop being a doctor.’ That’s my word till date. I still treat people, and I treat them for free. That's my giving back to society."

The second promise was deeply personal. “I told Maa, ‘You’ll never be ashamed of anything that I do. There’ll never be a scandal about me.’”

It perhaps explains why, unlike many of his contemporaries, Sen has stayed away from parties, networking and celebrity circuits. “If you want to give me attention,” he says, “give me attention for my work”.

Song that refused to age

If Dhoom Pichak Dhoom became Euphoria’s anthem, Maaeri became its soul. “Honestly, I think Maaeri was the least likely song to become an anthem,” he says. “Even today, people call me ‘Maaeri wala singer’. I’m okay with that.”

The song, he reveals, arrived without warning. “I woke up around 3 am and there was a tune playing in my head.”

Asked what song he would play for his rebellious 18-year-old self, he doesn’t choose an old classic, but Koi Na, from Dhoomsday. “I’d tell my 18-year-old self, ‘Everything can go wrong, but let it go. Koi na. It’ll be fine. Don’t get so hyper or anxious.’”

Diagnosing crowds, not just patients

Medicine, Sen believes, taught him more about music than music ever taught him about medicine. “As a doctor, you diagnose before treatment. I do the same on stage. I first diagnose the crowd, then I make the setlist.” Every audience, he says, needs something different. “Even managers always say, ‘When you don’t know which artiste to put on stage, call up Palash’,” he says with a laugh.

That instinct extends to leading Euphoria as well. “The leader isn’t just the captain. He’s also the peon of the band. You can’t have egos. You have to pursue humility. You have to make sure everybody is comfortable.”

His greatest achievement isn't chart success. “I am proud that everybody in my band has homes, cars and a bank balance. That matters more to me than what I got out of life.”

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Noise and the music

Few artistes have witnessed the journey from cassettes to streaming as closely as Sen. “What I love today is that everybody has the opportunity to make music. But because music is so easily available, it has lost its value,” he says. 

Thousands of songs arrive every week, he points out, but discovery still depends on marketing budgets. “It’s a double-edged sword.”

He is equally candid about social media’s impact. “People are more interested in what you’re eating, where you’re holidaying, what watch you’re wearing. Music is often just something to make reels on.”

Still searching, not chasing

Despite nearly three decades in the business, Sen insists relevance isn’t something he seeks from the world. “I’m looking for validation from myself and from the band. If we feel what we’re doing is good and relevant, everything is okay.”

His advice to younger musicians is equally uncomplicated. “Don’t try to be Euphoria. Don’t try to be AR Rahman or Arijit Singh. Just be who you are. If somebody says, ‘Palash sings like somebody else,’ I wouldn’t consider that a compliment. I’d think that’s an insult.”

That stubborn individuality also explains why he has always embraced being an outsider to Bollywood. “I am a playfront guy,” he says. “The composer, the singer, the creator of the song should be the one whose face is out there.”

As Dhoomsday prepares to arrive, it will be followed later this year by Dhoom 25, a complete re-recording and remastering of Euphoria’s first two albums. It is both an act of preservation and reinvention — much like the band itself.

Nearly three decades after they first convinced India that rock could speak in its own language, Euphoria is still refusing to fit neatly into nostalgia. The songs may now carry the weight of memory, but Sen remains focused on what comes next. After all, as he reminds us, anthems are never written with the intention of becoming one. “They’re just songs,” he says, adding, “The rest... the universe decides.”

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