Born in Vypin Islands (near Cochin, India) to Thankamani and Dharmajan, Baiju Dharmajan started his musical career in 1980, at an early age of 14. He began with the Carnatic violin, but then, slowly shifted to the guitar.
His father used to play the Hawaiian guitar, and his grandfather was a Carnatic musician.
Dharmajan used to play the guitar in a traveling troupe of musicians from an early age. He has also played with the legendary Malayalam singer Yesudas.
Baiju is also a big fan of Illayaraja, and likes compositions of Raveendran, Devarajan, Noushad and R D Burman, among other composers.
His father had a collection of ghazals by Mehdi Hassan, Anup Jalota and Pankaj Udhas. Dharmajan grew up listening to Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi film music.