Namrata Mohanty is a popular singer in the Odisha music scene. OdishaLIVE delves deeper in her mind and probes what music means to her as part of the series ‘Music in My Life’
Why and How did you enter in to the World of Music?
I was attracted to music ever since I was a child. Both my father and mother encouraged me to take up singing and wanted me to learn music properly and become a good singer. I learnt classical vocal music from eminent gurus like Dhananjay Satpathy, Shantanu Das, A Maheshwar Rao and Lalit Kumar Tripathy.
My father wished that I appear the music audition of All India Radio (AIR), Cuttack and qualify it. I practiced very hard and cleared the audition in the year 1983. I was in college at that time. Since then, I’ve been performing regularly on the AIR as an artiste. I have also performed on Doordarshan and other TV channels.
How do you explain the Impact of Music in your Life?
Music is the sole motivation in my life. It is my alter ego. Music has helped me solve many problems and has brought peace, bliss and harmony in my life.
What is your opinion to make Music more Popular among the new generation media and audience? What role you can play in that?
Yes, I do make music keeping the younger generation in mind. I’ve two such albums which are mainly for them. They are Janhare Tolide Ghara (2009) and Chhuti (2014), written by Bijaya Malla, Arun Mitra and Nizam and composed by eminent composer Om Prakash Mohanty. Both the albums appealed to the youth for their peppy and catchy numbers. I’m planning to cut more such albums in near future in view of the growing number of new generation music lovers.
