Kolkata, June 19 (IANS): Despite long hours poring over their books, sitting attentively in the lecture halls and looking after patients in the wards, interns and students of a medical institute in Odisha have managed to find time to launch two music albums.

What is more creditworthy, the handful of the wananbe medicos of the Institute of Medical Sciences and Sum Hospital (IMSSH) in Bhubaneswar are the lyricists, composers and singers in the album numbers.

Six students - Abhinab Nayak, Surja Agrawal, Soumyadipta Mishra, Soumyakanta Mohapatra, Jay Kalaria and Sarthak Satpathy - founded the college music band 'Saaj' in 2008.

All of them have since graduated from the college.

The seed sown then has since blossomed into a tree. Sharing a common bond for music, the students and interns often gathered to sing and enjoy themselves whenever they found some spare time. The idea to launch an album took shape gradually.

"It has given us a lot of satisfaction and the lyricists, composers and singers are all from our college. This, perhaps, is the first music album launched by medical students in Odisha," said Maitri Rang, who completed her internship recently.

Maitri, who hails from Howrah in West Bengal and has been the spirit behind the endeavour, said they were encouraged by those who floated 'Saaj'. "We wanted to keep the fire burning."

"We were greatly inspired by the musical exploits of singer-cum-medical practitioner Palash Sen of 'Euphoria' fame. His achievements infused in us the spirit to go at it," she said.

The first album 'Saawariyaa', released a few months ago, was the medicos' "labour of love" as they struggled to make it happen.

The album has six Hindi songs with Maitri lending her mellifluous voice to three of the numbers.

"We consider it a dream come true, a major achievement, though it's a bit away from our profession," said Maitri, who has training in classical singing.

The other songs in the album included 'Saajna', sung by Suraj Agrawal, while Sohom Ghosh, a student from Kolkata who already has a Bengali album to his name back home, was the lyricist, composer and singer in several numbers.

The group, now having new members from the first and second year students, launched its second album 'Naina' recently.

The album contained 11 songs, all penned and sung by students who had either passed out of the medical college or were still studying there.

"It has been a difficult journey as we have to perform our duties in the hospital and study, but the group has achieved it because of their collective passion for music," said Sohom.