There’s no single word to describe Samriddhi Rai. She’s been a journalist, VJ, RJ, emcee, singer/songwriter, professional sportsperson, beauty pageant title holder, traveler, and vlogger. Wearing so many hats was never the plan, she says. As a kid, she did have a range of interests though and hence doing multiple things is just an expression of her personality.
For now, her focus is making music and vlogs. She knows her career graph will keep changing, but she likes to be referred to as a singer and songwriter.
Debuting with “Biswas” in 2014, Rai went on to release a few singles including the widely popular “Ma Chahi Nepali” and then finally, in 2019, a full album “Ma Dami Chhu”. She won the national music award for Best Female Pop Vocalist the same year.
Despite her busy schedule with all the music making and travelling, Sunny Mahat of APEX managed to sneak into her itinerary for a brief conversation.
Excerpts:
What inspired you to take up music?
The fact that singing always made me so happy really pushed me to take this up as a full time career. For as long as I can remember, I have always loved the stage despite initial stage fright. I always wanted to be a performer and just had to shed my fears of a more “comfortable life or secure career” and go for it. And ‘go for it’ I did.
What do you enjoy more? Performing live or recording in the studio?
I enjoy both thoroughly. Recording has its own challenges. You’re still in a creative mode, adding a bit of this and cancelling a bit of that, going for takes and retakes, and then mastering, and re-mastering. I love this grueling process of creation. Now performing is altogether another level of fun. You see every last face in the audience and you can see how they’re reacting to your music. It’s an exchange of energy on a mass scale. Everybody is in the moment, they’re present for you and your music, and you perform from your heart. How ecstatic is that!
What would you like to continue doing in the music industry?
I would love to write more songs about the topics that interest me. I kind of wanted to break the pattern that pop singers only sing about love. No, we do more than that. I am deeply moved by social issues, and I champion some social causes that I have time and again infused into my songs. Somehow I also feel that I would make a good music director for movies. Sometimes when I sit alone, all kinds of “filmy” melodies come to me, which I would most likely not use in my pop albums. I would love to share that with the Nepal movie industry. Someday.
When did it occur to you that vlogging could be a career choice?
As I mentioned earlier, nothing was planned. I thought I would be a high-profile journalist, media-type person (laughs) as I pursued media studies starting from high school. But it all ended and I just wanted to travel—both for fun and for a purpose. Turns out the ‘purpose’ factor took a stronger hold and the first season of my YouTube travel series “Sammy Adventures” snowballed into a 12-episode TV series in its second season. Then there were other vlogs done with major partnerships. And my passion turned out to be quite a cool profession. I guess, if you do things from the heart, there’s a place for you everywhere.
Do you think there’s room for more women in the field? If yes, what do you think is holding them back?
Where there’s room for men, there is always room for women. We don’t live in the stone-age and therefore there are no gender-specific work choices anymore. But, one thing I can tell you about Nepali women is that, it’s mostly the societal molding or their family background that’s hindering them. ‘Keti bhaera dherai ghumna hudaina, keti manchhe ghar ma chhito aunu parchha.’ I don’t know why people, especially in this part of the world, are so keen on protecting a woman’s honor. Sorry, but our honor doesn’t lie in our one female body part.
You’ve been misunderstood, misquoted and misrepresented quite a few times on social media. Do you think it is because you are a successful woman or does that happen equally to everyone regardless of their gender?
Although I felt those were unfortunate events, when my words were minced to imply something other than what I intended to say, I am glad that it happened that way. Because those events actually started off conversations on crucial topics that this society really needed to talk about. My BBC Sajha Sawal controversy started off discussions on inter-caste marriage and cyber bullying. My traffic police incident was a peek into the authority’s need to curtail a woman’s personal choice of clothing.
I am a very straight-forward person. It just so happens that I am a woman. If I were a straight-forward man voicing my opinions, maybe that wouldn’t be much of a controversy. In fact, I would probably be praised for being honest and frank. However, this patriarchy-centric society wasn’t so lucky to have me as a man, and therefore any strong opinions shared by me, a woman, pricks them to the core. Unlucky, for them again, I will never refrain from talking on issues that matter, and sadly, they can do nothing to stop me. Except of course hurl at me their sexist curses through the wonderful world of social media. And I am game for it.
