Kathmandu, March 17 -- Growing up, Shephalika Dhakal was an introverted child, someone more comfortable blending into the background than stepping into the limelight. "I didn't socialise a lot or make many friends," she recalls. "But I was always comfortable on stage. One-on-one conversations terrified me, but performing in front of an audience felt natural," she says.

Despite this, music and poetry were always present in her life. Writing poetry became a personal refuge, a means to process emotions and make sense of the world around her. However, it was only after her younger brother, singer-songwriter Nilotpal Dhakal, urged her to transform her poetry into lyrics that she began to consider songwriting. "He was like, 'You write poems. Y...