At 25, the voice that once carried Maithili folk songs across the world now echoes through the Bihar Assembly as its youngest-ever MLA. From the school corridors where classmates sneered “stupid Bihari” to the victory stage in Alinagar, where she ended a 17-year BJP drought with a thunderous win, Maithili Thakur has turned every insult into an anthem—and just made history sing.
Besides political and musical achievements, Maithili’s journey also holds memoirs of rejections, bullying, and failures, too. Previously, talking to a media house, her mother also shared some hurtful snippets from the past.
Recently, an interview with Maithili is making rounds on the internet, where she can be seen sharing her story. Her first try was on the show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Lil Champs, but she was turned down because the judges felt she was "too focused on classical music."
“I used to cry a lot. When I was rejected, I told myself that I would even sing Bollywood songs if that’s what it took,” she recalled.
Then in 2015, Maithili tried out for Indian Idol, but her father again told her to stick with classical music. She was rejected from that show for the same reason.
“Sometimes they don’t even tell you why you are rejected. I used to feel extremely bad.”
There came a time when she thought of giving up her passion for music entirely.
Talking about her school and being bullied, she said, “I had a phobia of girls my age. I feared their comments. They would simply say, ‘stupid Bihari’. It had become like a cuss word. If two girls from Haryana got into a fight, they would call each other ‘Bihari’ to put the other down. I became a first-bencher and never made friends.”
“I couldn’t relate to their talks. They would discu
“I wanted to quit singing and prepare for UPSC. I was good at studies.”ss their next big trip or sleepovers. We were not financially sound, so I avoided getting involved. I used to stay in Najafgarh, which was quite far, and I was ashamed of telling this to the girls in my school.”
Maithili's mother --
“We changed 17 houses in a decade. At the time, we could only afford one-room houses, and they were mostly attached to someone else’s house. My husband’s riyaaz and that of my children would disturb people, and we’d have to leave. These kids were never naughty or troubled anyone, but we kept moving so that they could practice peacefully,” said Maithili’s mother.
The turning point came when Maithili won a music reality show. After this, she got calls from Yash Chopra and Karan Johar’s offices. But putting her video and sharing her voice via social media was Maithili’s choice. Soon, she got famous.
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