Meet Maithili Thakur, India’s teenage folk-singing internet sensation
- Her power-packed folk ballads and Sufi songs have attracted more than 1.4 million YouTube subscribers
- Originally from a remote village, she found the spotlight after appearing on reality TV shows
Country music: I was born in 2000, in the Madhubani district of Bihar, India. I grew up in a village in a remote area – there was no electricity and most people were farmers, herding cows. I didn’t go to school as there was no school in the area. My father lived away much of the time, in Delhi, establishing himself as a music teacher. He taught his students in their homes.
I lived with my mother, two younger brothers, Rishav and Ayachi, and my grandparents on my father’s side, who were a huge influence on me. They used to sing spiritual songs and every week singers from different villages would come to our house. When I was three or four years old, I joined in with them singing; it was a spiritual jam.
Home work: When I was seven, my father decided I should have proper training in music, and he brought me, my mother and brothers to Delhi. Living in a big city was very different from village life – I couldn’t believe all the traffic. And we had electricity. My father didn’t have the money to send me to a good school, so he brought me some second-hand books and I studied at home. He gave me a lot of guidance. He advised me how to behave, how to greet people, how to not be hurt by things that people may say and to stay strong.
Naturally, I wanted to live like other children, I wanted to play in the park, but my father told me it wasn’t a time to play, it was a time to learn. I wasn’t to go to school so I could focus on music. My father taught me Hindustani classical music. I knew we couldn’t have a lavish life in the city, so I devoted myself to learning music.
Tough lessons: When I was eight years old, I visited a music school. A man from a government school asked my father which school I went to. After he explained I was home-schooled, the man offered to send me to a government school. They were quite mean – I was expected to stay in the music room and help other students prepare for music competitions. I didn’t know how to deal with this situation and I told my father. He wasn’t happy about it but advised me to go with the flow.