Prashant Kakad wound the clock backward, making himself look about 20 years younger after leaving his Intel career for a life of dancing, singing and DJing.

Or, maybe it’s just the flowy linen pants and printed silk shirts buttoned halfway up, but Kakad swears it’s the job change.

Regardless, 43-year-old Kakad, better known as “DJ Prashant,” is bringing the party to Portland and beyond, with his Punjabi-pop mashups and more.

It could be an evening dance class with kids, or a color explosion with thousands in Pioneer Courthouse Square. Whichever it is, he’s happy to not be living his past life at Intel.

Yes, this silk shirt, marbled and gold sunglasses wearing, Portland local was once a nanotechnology engineer at Intel before finding his calling in world of disc jockeys.

An unexpected benefit: He looks about 20 years younger than he did when working in engineering.

“If you saw a photo of him from 15 years ago, it’s like you’re looking at a totally different person,” Ayana Perry, Kakad’s coworker, said.

Kakad is the founder of Bollywood Dreams Entertainment, a professional DJ company, and Dance United, a nonprofit dedicated to spreading the electrifying energy of love, unity, happiness and diversity across cultures through music and dance.

The son of a movie-loving mom and Indian Air Force dad
Kakad was born and raised in India. His dad, a driver in the Indian Air Force, “ran away from home.” His grandpa wanted his dad to become a milkman, equipped with a farm full of cows, so his dad ran away and joined the military.

“My upbringing happened in a very interesting, idealistic environment,” Kakad said, showing a glimpse of his eyes hidden behind blue tinted sunglasses.

Everyone whose family was involved in the military lived in the same area — called a cantonment in India.

“I grew up quite literally, in a way, like ‘ The Truman Show'” Kakad described.

No, they weren’t being lived broadcasted, but in some ways, it felt like a TV set, waking up every morning, waving hello and goodbye to the same familiar faces.

“I grew up thinking this is how all of India was,” Kakad said. “I thought everyone just got along really well, but I was in a bubble.”

Kakad’s bubble didn’t pop until fourth grade.

He described himself as a normal child, recounting memories of the 15-minute bike rides to the Taj Mahal, tucked into a small front seat while his mom took caboose.

He loved sports, playing with others and surely hadn’t considered engineering would be in his future.

After breaking from their bubble, Kakad discovered song and dance in sixth grade. Though he’d been influenced by Bollywood by six months old.

His dad knew how to sing every song, with every note, completely out of tune, and he’d do it often.

“He would sing it with so much love and gusto,” Kakad recalled, breaking into song while sitting at a corner table in Prince Coffee.

His mom and dad both are movie buffs. Kakad grew up in booming, loud theaters. When his mother was pregnant she’d indulge on Chaat cuisine and watch films.

“I was watching movies in the womb,” Kakad said.

Hitting rock bottom in college
Kakad always rebelled. It was — and still is — his character by nature.

His family pressured him to excel in his studies, so he did the opposite.

He was curious, and questioned everyone living the norm.

“‘Why do we say that? What does it mean?’ And the answers I always got were, ‘No questions. Do as you’re told,'” Kakad recalled of his childhood. “The rebellious me was like, ‘Oh, therefore I will not do that at all.'”

Headstrong, he did fine through school, all the way into college, until he flunked his sophomore year.

Kakad studied textile sciences and engineering at the University of Mumbai.

One week ahead of his exams, his nose was buried in textbooks, absorbing as much as possible, before regurgitating it back on the page; his strategy only worked for so long.

But Kakad said what played into his falling out in education was coming from a lower class family.

“It weighed on my soul as a guilt that I did not deserve to be there,” Kakad said of being in college. “I had to fail to truly let that thing manifest itself fully and burn off.”

And to his surprise, his parents weren’t mad. He anticipated them to not see past their tunnel vision that he had to reach success in a field like engineering.

Instead, he was met with love and care.

“When you hit rock bottom and receive love and acceptance, that is when transition can happen,” Kakad said. “It certainly happened for me.”

He retook all the sophomore year course again, concurrently finishing his junior year, and ended up topping his class.

Kakad dubbed this version of himself as “Topper Prashant,” a version of himself he’d always strive to be.

Mumbai to Portland — with a pitstop in New York
In 1998, Kakad was researching how to convert leftover sugar cane into a viable alternative wood in making paper. For example, using sugar cane to make to-go food boxes.

It’s the studies that brought Kakad to the United States.

“There I was, trying to memorize 5,000 English words,” Kakad said, as his professor urged to him go to the states to further his research.

Simultaneously, his passion for dance and music was skyrocketing, feeding off the thrill of performing for audiences, looking forward to his college’s annual showcase.

“I’m living my whole year for this one showcase, but I would go and tell myself, ‘Nah, that is not a life for you,'” Kakad said, denying his passion for performing.

Kakad picked a list of university options, among them were Cornell University and University of Florida. His career counselor looked at him, singling out Cornell, and goes:

“They will not even look at your application. They will throw it away, if it even made it back to their desk.”

Here came rebellious Kakad, and apply he did.

Kakad attended Cornell University in 2003 on a full scholarship. He moved from India within four weeks of finishing his undergraduate exams.

“I showed up here and was immediately depressed,” he said.

The city of Mumbai was incomparable to the city noise and ambient sounds that never ceased to stop, except between the hours of 4 to 7 a.m.

Kakad went to school, intending on completing a PhD, but finished about 80% of the course load in three years time and felt the need to listen to “something else.”

He didn’t want to achieve the highest level of education in a field he still wasn’t fully convinced he stay in. Struggling to land a job, applying to more than 100 places, his buddy recommended Intel.

Kakad’s friend sent in his résumé, earning him a brief 15-minute phone interview to describe his nanotechnology research and granting him a flight from Ithaca, New York, to Oregon.

On April 16, 2006, Kakad moved to Portland. On April 23, 2006, he was singing at Portland State University.

Goodbye Intel, hello DJ Prashant 
“I was at Intel for three and a half years, probably three years too many,” Kakad said.

It took six months for him to realize it was the wrong fit.

On Aug. 15, which marks India’s Independence Day, a festival took place in downtown — this was in 2009.

Still working at Intel, Kakad was branching out more often, finding ways to incorporate song and dance into his life. He was singing in a band in Southeast Portland, hosted the noon hour fitness classes at Intel and taught community members how to sing and dance.

DJing fit right in, self-teaching the skills, as he was already attending weekly dance classes from salsa, West African dance, hip hop, you name it.

“All of this was happening on the side and I was becoming increasingly frustrated at the time,” Kakad said on his job. “It’s an awesome company, anybody that has a lot of passion can do a lot of things, but you have to play inside the red tape.”

Here came rebellious Kakad again.

He performed at the India Independence Day festival.

“I cannot describe to you the high that I felt,” Kakad said.

The next day at work, doom scrolling on his laptop he thought: “What am I doing with my life?”

At 27-years-old, he requested a couple days off, and ended up not going back.

“Everybody except my dad was like, ‘What are you thinking?'” he said.

Quitting his job took away all of the pressure he’d been facing. He finally had a few days of relief, but nightmares crept in, seeing images of himself as homeless, abandoned by his family and isolated.

“In Indian life you educate, you get a job, everything else is like the edge of a mountain, you do not go to the mountain cliff,” Kakad described. “Here I was; I ran too far.”

A life of performing 
Much of his career took off by Kakad offering CDs to local restaurants and businesses to play, one being Pasha, which was a small Middle Eastern restaurant and nightclub combo.

Kakad scored a monthly residency in New York City at a club called Karma making about $300 for two nights of DJing — taking home about $60 after paying for the flight.

He started teaching dance classes at Portland Community College and PSU. He then taught private dance classes.

Then bouncing to DJing gigs from 10 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. running on orange juice, water and soda to keep his persistent low blood pressure on the rise.

“That was my jam,” Kakad said of the trio of liquids.

McMenamins threw Kakad a bone and they worked together to curate an image that brought his performances closer to his culture.

Mike Walker, music marketing manager for McMenamins Crystal Ballroom, even helped him create the “Jah Ho!” name for his dance parties hosted by Kakad’s later founded Bollywood Dreams Entertainment company.

His residency at the Crystal Ballroom last about three years, giving his a big break to spread his name. By this time, he had expanded into cities like Seattle, hosting parties.

“DJing to me is like a bottomless ocean,” Kakad said of the endless options DJing poses.

Most recently, he hosted Portland’s Holi festival in Pioneer Courthouse Square, featuring color throws, food, drink and music, of course.

He has one golden rule as a DJ: Nobody should notice if you’re using effects.

And while he’s keen to creating a good vibe, his mission as an artist is rooted in his bubble of an upbringing. He described and inherent sense of regionalism in India, but always falls back on his fond memories of breaking regional barriers when attending music festivals.

“My work is a rebellion against that aspect of regionalism that perhaps doesn’t serve the greater good that we are one country and one world,” Kakad said. “Music and dance has the power to make best friends out of people with the widest apart political spectrums, widest apart skin colors, widest apart geographical places — that’s the power of music and dance.”

And to put it simply he said: “Everybody, just get together and party already.”