“We all grow up with a dream. With stars in our eyes. I’ve loved singing since childhood and always won singing competitions at school. After passing Grade 10, Dad got me into learning the piano.

I appeared for exams conducted by the Trinity College of Music, London. Every year, each exam brought with it a new challenge, and when you have a challenge in life, you become determined to overcome it. You have something to live for. There’s always the next milestone to reach, the next new thing to learn.

On a family trip to Goa in 2018, we’d wandered into a music instrument shop. It was there that I encountered my first ukulele. And I fell in love. Once back home, I decided to learn and ordered one online. It wasn’t as easy as it looked, but hey, you don’t know until you try, right?

I already had an Instagram page where I uploaded art and poetry, but since I suffered from low self-esteem issues, I never uploaded any videos of me singing. Coming across all these covers on Instagram, by people my age, I was really inspired. The idea of putting myself out there for the judgment of hundreds of people seemed really daunting, and that’s exactly why I decided I needed to do it. I uploaded my first cover of “Believer” by Imagine Dragons, and the response was overwhelming. I realized I loved being on camera, and covering music I enjoyed.

I landed my first public performance at the Hyderabad Literary Festival 2020, courtesy of an art community, The Nation’s Rock Beat. I was really nervous, but once I stepped onto the stage, all that nervousness simply vanished. Interacting with the audience was so much fun, and once I finished, the cheering just wouldn’t stop!

Barely a month later, Team Seher contacted me for my second performance and there was an even bigger audience to be won over. Both these experiences were completely different from each other and yet had something in common. They helped me discover my love for performing. There’s just something about being on stage that makes me forget about everything else and live completely in the moment. I am acutely aware of every thought, of the adrenaline and the blood coursing through my veins, of my own heartbeat. And in that moment, I am infinite. Timeless.

I come from a fairly conservative family and although my parents are still hesitant about letting me perform because of all the stereotypes surrounding the performance scene, I am grateful to be able to take up the opportunities I am getting. I am only two performances old, and have a long way to go, but I know I’ll make it there. Because when you have a dream, when you have stars in your eyes, you see nothing else. You simply reach out to the sky with faith in your heart, and one day, you find yourself soaring among the clouds.”